27 



AOSCA supports very strongly the provision in the new UPOV 

 Convention that a farmer may save seed for his or her own use on 

 their own holdings and also the provision that those seeds may not 

 be sold for further propagation. 



Again, my analogy for this reasoning is the same that Senator 

 Harkin used earlier. Senator Cochran and I from Mississippi are 

 privileged to have in our State the distinguished author John Gris- 

 ham. John has written a couple of novels that most of you may 

 have read or own, called "The Firm" and "The Pelican Brief." If 

 you or I own a copy of those novels, we can do anything that we 

 choose with that book, but I don't think that John would want us 

 to reproduce and sell those novels without his permission. 



Certainly those of us in AOSCA view the issuance of a plant va- 

 riety protection certificate to ensure similar protection for plant 

 breeders and the varieties that they develop. 



The impact on our farmers of decreased participation in certifica- 

 tion since 1980, we feel, is to deny them the opportunity to pur- 

 chase products that are verified by an independent third party 

 source such as AOSCA as to assurance of genetic identity and the 

 quality of seed they purchase. 



We firmly believe that the provision of an individual not being 

 allowed to sell seed of a protected variety will result in increased 

 quality, number, and kinds of seed available to our farmers, and in 

 the long run, we feel like this will enhance the entire production of 

 United States agriculture capabilities. 



Mr. Chairman, we in AOSCA also respectfully submit for your 

 consideration our concerns with the transition Section 12 of your 

 amendments. We realize that many will interpret this as having 

 two sets of laws or standards. We also realize the practicality of 

 this situation. At the bare minimum, we do urge you to modify Sec- 

 tion 12 to at least include those varieties that are currently on file 

 or in various stages of examination in the Commissioner's office at 

 this time. 



Mr. Chairman, we also think that there is sufficient need to 

 amend Section 83(a) of the current act which deals with the con- 

 tent and term of plant variety protection. This is a noncontrover- 

 sial issue dealing with the applicant having the ability to change 

 the number of generations that he specifies on his original applica- 

 tion. In many cases, we run into very unforseen commercial seed 

 production problems, or in the case of natural disasters such as you 

 had with the Mississippi River in the Midwest this year. 



The only options currently available to an applicant that discov- 

 ers he has made a mistake or needs to change the number of gen- 

 erations is to continue with the mistake that he originally made or 

 currently to abandon any protection that he had. 



We appreciate the opportunity to be here today and, as an orga- 

 nization, express our support to you for the final version of the bill 

 that you do adopt. 



Senator Kerrey. Thank you very much, Dr. Watson. 



Our next witness is David Svik, who is the President of the Asso- 

 ciation of American Seed Control Officials with the Nebraska De- 

 partment of Agriculture. 



