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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

 AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE 

 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS TO 

 1406, THE PLANT VARIETY PROTECTION ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1993 



1. Q. A 1989 OTA report, Patenting Life , stated that the 

 impact of the PVPA was unclear -- that direct stimulation of 

 private investment was approximately that of the preceding 10 

 years and that increases in private development of varieties have 

 been limited to a few major crops (soybeans and wheat) . The 

 original intent of the PVPA was to make more varieties available. 

 How has the number of varieties changed since enactment? Please 

 include a listing by crop in your response. 



A. It is difficult to establish a baseline number of 

 varieties which had been released before the passage of the PVPA. 

 Moreover, United States law does not require that a variety be 

 registered or granted a PVP certificate before it is released to 

 the market. If the number of applications received in the PVP 

 Office during the first five fiscal years of its operation is 

 compared with the number of applications received in recent years 

 (see Table A) , and if it is postulated that this reflects the 

 situation in general, then an increase in the number of new 

 varieties released per year can be demonstrated for most crops. 

 Note that tomatoes and five other crops were excluded from the 

 PVPA until 1980. Based on data gathered by the PVP Office (see 

 Table B) , in some crops (such as soybeans and wheat) , the number 

 of PVP applications represents a large percentage of the total 

 number of varieties available, whereas, in other crops, the 

 number of applications received represents only a small fraction 

 of the known varieties. 



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