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1521 New Hampshire Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20036 

 OF AMERICA (202) 745-7805 • FAX (202) 483-4040 • TELEX 650-252-9879 MCI 



PRODUCERS • GINNERS • WAREHOUSEMEN • MERCHANTS • CRUSHERS • COOPERATIVES • MANUFACTURERS 



June 6, 1994 



The Honorable Charles Stenholm 

 Chairman 



Subcommittee Department Operations 

 and Nutrition Subcommittee 

 U.S. House of Representatives 

 Committee on Agriculture 

 Washington, D.C. 20515 



Dear Mr. Chairman: 



I am writing to convey the comments of the National Cotton Council of America on 

 H.R. 2927, the Plant Variety Protection Act Amendments. We would appreciate your 

 assistance in including this correspondence in the hearing record. 



The National Cotton Council is the central organization of the U.S. cotton industry, 

 representing growers, ginners, cottonseed crushers, warehousemen, merchants, 

 cooperatives, and textile manufacturers from California to the Carolinas. 



Section of the Act would amend section 1 13 of the Plant Variety Protection Act(PVPA) 

 to remove the provision which allows a person, whose primary farming occupation is the 

 growing of crops for sale for other than reproductive purposes, to sell "saved seed" to 

 other such persons, for reproductive purposes without being in violation of the PVPA. 

 The deletion of the provision allowing farmers to sell saved seed, except as provided in 

 section 12 of the proposed legislation, is necessary to confirm to Articles 14(1) and 15(2) 

 of the 1991 revisions to the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants(UPOV). 

 We understand it is not the objective of the amendment to diminish the right of a farmer 

 to save seed for replanting and to use the crop or sell it for other than reproductive 

 purposes. 



While we support reasonable action to curb abuses of the "farmers exemption", we want 

 to ensure the proposed legislation does not restrict the farmer's right to save and replant 

 saved seed in an arbitrarily narrow way which might ignore normal farming practices. 



