25 



the entire 10,529 bushels as seed for about $8.50 per bushel. A com- 

 parable amount of Asgrow seed sold for about $16.50. The Winter- 

 boer's sales of the 10,529 bushels is enough to plant approximately 

 10,500 acres, or approximately 2 percent of Asgrow's Iowa market. 



No seed company, whether it be Asgrow or Latham Seed Compa- 

 ny, can do the research, the development, the advertising, the 

 dealer education, the marketing, take all the economic risks associ- 

 ated with bringing a new variety to market and then have a third 

 party with little or no expense copy their success and sell at half 

 their prices. This not only hurts us as a small family-owned seed 

 company, but our farmer-dealers, who go to significant expense of 

 their own in servicing their farmer customers. 



The positive amendments you are now considering will go a long 

 way toward stopping damaging brown-bag sales while preserving 

 the rights of farmers to save seed for their own use on their farms. 

 In fact, farmers can even increase the acreage planted over the 

 previous year's acreage. Under these amendments, the only things 

 farmers cannot do is sell their crop as seed. 



This issue is not one of big seed companies versus small farmers. 

 The issue is how to adequately encourage and then protect the 

 rights of those who expend their economic and personal resources 

 in developing new and better varieties which benefit the American 

 farmer in today's international market. Such protection is the only 

 way that small companies like ours can continue to pour dollars 

 into new research. 



These amendments to the PVPA will help protect these rights as 

 well as encourage seed companies in the development of newer va- 

 rieties. This will help to make U.S. agriculture more competitive in 

 the world market. U.S. farmers should be concerned that multina- 

 tional companies with more resources will release new varieties 

 only where they are afforded adequate protection. This point is 

 particularly important as budgets for public university breeding 

 programs continue to shrink. 



One amendment proposed, Section 2541(7), would make condi- 

 tioning of a protected variety an act of infringement. We encourage 

 the proper handling and conditioning of farmer-saved seed and 

 would hope that such activities would be permitted, but that know- 

 ingly conditioning seed that is intended for sale be made a viola- 

 tion of the act. 



In summary, passage of S. 1406 is important to small seed com- 

 panies like ours and it permits us to concentrate on what we do 

 best, research, development, and marketing of new and better vari- 

 eties of soybeans for our farm customers, rather than spending our 

 limited resources on enforcing our rights. 



Thank you for the opportunity to present my views this after- 

 noon. 



Senator Kerrey. Thank you very much, Mr. Latham. 



The next individual to testify is Dr. Vance Watson, executive 

 vice president of the Association of Official Seed Certifying Agen- 

 cies with Mississippi State. 



