Finally, I would like to ask each of you to stay in your place once 

 you have finished your statement so that we can pose questions to 

 the group as a whole. 



We will begin the hearing with a statement from the Senator 

 from Iowa, Senator Harkin, who obviously has a great interest in 

 this issue. I appreciate your being here. 



STATEMENT OF HON. TOM HARKIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM IOWA 



Senator Harkin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Your opening statement correctly summed up the situation con- 

 fronting us now. Of course, you do have a bill in that you have 

 sponsored, S. 1406, to make sure that we conform with the UPOV 

 treaty which I believe we must do. 



Mr. Chairman, obviously some assurance of reward for the ex- 

 penditures that are made by companies to invest the time and the 

 effort, the expertise they have in research and development is a 

 very important consideration in whether or not they do that kind 

 of research. 



The Plant Variety Protection Act, which you mentioned, basical- 

 ly was designed to encourage the development of new varieties; sec- 

 ondly, to make sure that they were available to the public; and 

 third, to give protection to those who develop these varieties to pro- 

 mote progress in agriculture. 



Obviously, if you look back just the last 23 years, we have had 

 some great progress, new varieties, new strains that are higher 

 yielding or more resistant to adverse weather or pests. That is 

 what these new plant varieties have meant for farmers, that they 

 can have greater assurance that if they plant a certain variety in a 

 certain latitude, for example, or a certain altitude, a certain cli- 

 mate, or a certain type of soil, that they are going to get a little bit 

 better yield than what they have in the past. 



So the law, as you said, does provide a patentlike protection, and 

 your bill would make this conform with the UPOV treaty. 



The most controversial part, obviously, is the prohibition of sell- 

 ing farmer-saved seed. However, I would also point out, Mr. Chair- 

 man, that farmers would still have the ability to save seed for their 

 own use. They could still protect themselves by saving the seed for 

 their own use. 



So really we have a question here of what is in the real interest 

 of agriculture — of farmers, and of promoting research. On the one 

 hand, farmers might argue that they should be able to buy seed 

 from a neighbor who reproduced it from a protected variety bought 

 from a seed company. But on the other hand, the seed company 

 would say that it must have protection against this kind of repro- 

 duction and resale or it would have no incentive to invest the kind 

 of money that is needed to develop new varieties, and it takes a 

 great deal of investment to develop these new varieties and to do 

 the necessary research. 



You have witnesses, I know, Mr. Chairman, from Iowa on both 

 sides of this issue, but I must say that from my looking at this 

 issue and having been involved with agriculture all these many 

 years, I view it no differently than any other kind of intellectual 



