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STATEMENT OF VANCE H. WATSON, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESI- 

 DENT, ASSOCIATION OF OFFICIAL SEED CERTIFYING AGEN- 

 CIES, MISSISSIPPI STATE, MS 



Mr. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon. 



My name is Vance Watson and I represent the Association of Of- 

 ficial Seed Certifying Agencies, commonly referred to as AOSCA. 

 This association is comprised of 42 member states in the United 

 States, Canada, and New Zealand, and we have its central office lo- 

 cated in Mississippi. This organization serves over 23,000 certified 

 seed growers in this country. AOSCA is the organization author- 

 ized and charged under the Federal Seed Act with responsibility in 

 this country for certifying seeds as to genetic standards. 



On behalf of the members of our organization, I am pleased to be 

 here today to support the intent and the spirit of S. 1406. 



Senator I also want to express my appreciation and thank you 

 for the significant time and efforts that you and your staffs have 

 devoted to the discussions and preparing the amendments of S. 

 1406. 



In my opinion, the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 is one of 

 the most significant pieces of legislation to impact plant variety de- 

 velopment and the seed industry in this country during this centu- 

 ry. As you so aptly stated, Senator, in your opening comments, 

 PVPA brought forth much venture capital from the private sector 

 and helped to transform and shift many of the traditional plant 

 breeding roles of the public institutions to the private sector. 



This provided opportunities for industry to develop state-of-the- 

 art commercial plant breeding programs for several species of crops 

 and provided our farmers with a wide choice of quality products. It 

 also helped the United States gain an undisputed world leadership 

 position with respect to plant variety development. 



Concurrently, the public research institutions and agencies were 

 afforded the opportunity to focus on development of new plant 

 breeding technologies, development of germplasm sources, and 

 training of future plant breeders. 



As other countries mimic the PVPA and develop their own im- 

 proved plant protection laws, plant variety development and plant 

 protection in this country require and deserve increased attention 

 to protect our world leadership position. We fully support the 

 intent of S. 1406 to bring us into full compliance with the 1991 

 UPOV Convention dealing with plant breeders' rights. 



The impact of plant variety protection can easily be documented 

 if one examines the national certification records of our associa- 

 tion. We just completed our 75th year in existence, and the acres 

 that were placed under certification during the first 50 years of our 

 existence increased at a very steady rate. But if we examine the 10- 

 year period immediately following passage of PVPA in 1970, we 

 can readily see a 25-percent increase in acres certified, and equally 

 as dramatic, in the period from 1980 through 1992 we see a 25-per- 

 cent decrease in the number of acres certified. 



We attribute most of this decrease in acres certified to the fla- 

 grant, open violations of the current act through unauthorized re- 

 production of protected varieties, commonly referred to as brown 

 bagging. 



