Page 69 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Seed Regulation in the US

Seed Initiative (2001), Restoring Our Seeds (2003), Organic Seed Partnership

(2004) and Northern Organic Variety Improvement Coalition (2009). In 2010,

Seed Matters, an industry-led foundation was set up to fund graduate research

in organic plant breeding and associated breeding and organic seed education

initiatives. The common purpose among these initiatives lies in training growers

for a range of diverse agro-ecosystems and crops, and in on-farm breeding and

organic seed production. Skills development includes management of variety

trials, dissemination of organically available germplasm to new regions, training

growers in on-farm breeding, developing new, organically-bred varieties

through participatory plant breeding, and developing unique variety release

mechanisms for the organic varieties bred through participatory processes.

For a thorough review of US organic seed initiatives focusing on participatory

approaches to organic plant breeding and varietal identiication, see Podoll,

(2009).

2.3.4 Resource mobilization

The diverse respondents consistently reported that the continuing regulatory

ambiguity has hindered the growth of the organic seed sector. Because the

regulatory process has remained open for interpretation and enforcement, many

stakeholders indicated that they had either not participated in the evolution of

the organic seed sector nor had mobilised resources to support development of

the sector. Others have taken a pro-active role. For instance, the establishment

of the OSA and the launch of the Seed Matters initiative were intended to guide

developments which optimised organic values. In order to demonstrate the

level of resources mobilized within the sector (and to identify opportunities for

future funding), the OSA and Seed Matters inventoried organic seed funding

initiatives. The resultant SOS report estimated that between 2002-2011 there

had been 57 public initiatives in support of organic seed and breeding, funded

to the sum of over $9,100,000, either through government or foundation grants

(some project funding estimated through 2014). The report categorized these

initiatives as follows: 30 breeding and variety trials ($6,800,000), 5 enterprise

development projects ($288,000), 11 seed production research and education

projects ($640,000), 5 systems development projects ($220,000), and 6 multi-

topic projects ($1,118,000) (Dillon and Hubbard, 2011). The majority were

initiated by universities, non-proit organizations and farmer groups, but the

major part of the funding came from government sources, namely in the form

51