44 



pany, that the seed company is responsible for where that seed is 

 sold and collecting if there are royalties involved. 



On the other side, if a cleaner or conditioner would run an 

 amount of seed for a single grower, he is not allowed to — he would 

 violate the law if we would take that seed and label it under that 

 certified name, since the grower or the farmer who gave him the 

 seed for the work is not licensed. That would be a violation. 



Mr. Strouts. You would have to sign a bulk transfer certificate 

 to that cleaner/conditioner, and this is difficult. It is discouraged. 

 We try to keep this from happening. We try to keep control back 

 with the grower, with the breeder. 



Mr. Stenholm. All right. I was kind of leading up, Mr. Keeling, 

 to your question where you are talking about automatic licensing 

 for, "small amounts of seed." Does that include the provision for 

 automatically forwarding the royalty on that seed? 



Mr. Keeling. We certainly would take a look at that. It is not 

 our intention to take anything away from the seed companies. It 

 is just a facilitation thing. So, I mean, it would have to be set up 

 in a way that was easy enough to do for the producer so that it 

 wasn't a pain in the neck- I mean, maybe a tag on the seed bag 

 or something that he could submit or that sort of thing. But, no, 

 we are not adverse to anything. Our desire is not to take anything 

 away from the seed company. 



Mr. Stenholm. So as I heard what you were trying to say is we 

 all agree that a producer may retain ownership of that volume of 

 seed that he intends to use for planting his next year's crop, and 

 whatever other amount, if he wants to retain enough to take care 

 of replanting, that is perfectly legal. 



Mr. Keeling. He could retain his whole crop. 



Mr. Stenholm. He could retain his whole crop. So long as he 

 doesn't sell it there is no problem? 



Mr. Keeling. Correct. 



Mr. Stenholm. But the moment he sells the first bag to someone 

 else there begins a potential problem? 



Mr. Keeling. Correct. 



Mr. Stenholm. A 1-bag sale to assist a neighbor who is short 

 one bag is not a problem and would not be legally pursued by any- 

 one, but a 2,000-bag sale to that same neighbor would become a 

 problem. So somewhere between 1 and 2,000 is what you, Mr. 

 Keeling, were saying that we should have language to, in fact, de- 

 fine. That becomes difficult. 



So somewhere between that 1 and 2,000 is where we got a poten- 

 tial problem. But if, through our educational process, all of us as 

 producers understand that whenever we sell something that be- 

 longs to somebody else we owe them for that which we have sold. 

 I mean, that is just plain old law. 



We all believe in private property rights. And if I know that I 

 am selling something that belongs to somebody else, then there is 

 an obligation on me to see that they get paid. 



But, at some point, it is up to individual honesty as to whether 

 you are going to do it or not. You have to live with your own con- 

 science. At some point, it becomes a legal matter because all of us 

 as producers now, I believe, are of the mind that if we continue to 

 have the brown bagging that we have, we are going to run out of 



