In March 2023, USDA published More and Better Choices for Farmers, a report responding to the Biden Administration’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. The report underscored challenges farmers face when sourcing seed, including restrictive contract language tied to seed intellectual property and a lack of varieties that meet their production needs at a fair price. USDA moved quickly to execute the report’s top recommendation: to establish a “Farmer Seed Liaison” within the Agricultural Marketing Service. The goals of the initiative are to enhance transparency in the seed marketplace; amplify the voices of growers; and promote broader access to seeds for research and breeding. To achieve these goals, USDA is working with other regulators through an interagency working group, including the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, and Patent and Trademark Office. USDA is also working with a team of academic collaborators at University of Wisconsin-Madison to implement these and other recommendations outlined in the 2023 report.
Last year Kiki Hubbard transitioned from OSA and stepped into a new role with University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of that team. We caught up with Kiki to learn more about the seed policy work she’s doing and the USDA’s Seed Liaison Initiative.
Q: You have contributed so much to the organic seed movement through your advocacy policy work. How do you see your new role deepening/adding to it?
I have gained a wealth of insight and knowledge over the last two decades from doing policy work alongside so many devoted seed growers and advocates. Thanks to these shared lessons and experiences, I now have the privilege of communicating what’s not working for small- and mid-sized seed growers and companies to administrative policymakers who have the power to effect change. Through the Farmer Seed Liaison initiative, our team also serves as a direct line between seed stakeholders and IP administrators, antitrust regulators, licensing and labeling enforcers, and other federal partners to ensure seed growers are being heard – so use us!
The gains we’ve made as a seed community are many, including more public plant breeding and organic research dollars, but there’s more work to do. The seed industry remains one of the most concentrated in agriculture, and we continue to hear from stakeholders about the impacts concentrated market power and strong IP rights have on their farms and businesses. Some of these concerns include a lack of transparency regarding IP rights on seed, research restrictions on patent-protected and even PVP-protected varieties, lengthy seed contracts, and more. USDA’s seed competition report provides strong recommendations for addressing these and other issues, and I’m grateful to be in a position to help implement them as part of a vision to establish resilient and responsive seed systems that work for a diversity of growers and the communities they feed.
Q: We saw that the USDA’s Seed Liaison Initiative launched a Website Monitoring Program focused on Federal Seed Act brand and variety name compliance. Can you share a bit about the need and goals for the program?
Our team has heard from farmers who say they don’t always have seed variety information at the time of purchase. For example, some seed companies only include brand names in their advertising, which farmers sometimes mistake as variety names/numbers. Farmers who want to plant different varieties of the same crop may inadvertently buy the same variety from two different brands. Planting diverse varieties is an important way to enhance on-farm resilience. While brand names can be associated with the name of the kind or variety of seed, the brand must be clearly identified as not being the kind or variety name.
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) enforces the Federal Seed Act, which includes variety labeling provisions. In response to concerns documented in USDA’s seeds report, AMS published a Notice to Trade in March 2023 communicating seed companies’ obligation to comply with the Federal Seed Act’s variety labeling requirements and a follow-up letter in November 2023. They also published a factsheet about the labeling issue.
AMS says it is holding seed companies accountable to the best interests of growers. Growers should expect to have access to the variety name of their seed no later than when the seed is scheduled to ship, and usually at the time of purchase. The Website Monitoring Program is intended to identify whether certain online advertisements may be misleading. Needless to say, it’s important that growers have all the relevant information they need to choose the best seed and supplier for their farm and markets.
Q: How can the organic seed community best support the work that the UW-Madison collaborator team and USDA is doing to address issues farmers are facing because of competition issues in the seed market?
In the context of agricultural competition policy, seed often falls through the cracks as we watch media headlines and policy actions focus on other concentrated sectors, such as livestock, fertilizer, and grocery retail. These sectors are critical to address, to be sure, but we can’t let policymakers and regulators forget about the foundation of our food and fiber supply.
The organic seed community has an important role – and timely opportunity – to leverage the current administration’s interest in hearing directly from the farming community about market competition. USDA wants to hear from seed growers about competition and intellectual property concerns – be it the patent system, PVP program, or licenses – as well as ideas for injecting fairness back into agricultural policies and our seed production infrastructure.
As academic cooperators with USDA, we are collaborating on policy solutions that don’t require Congressional action; but there is always a need for seed growers to communicate the importance of seed and their work to legislators as well. I have always been impressed by the organic seed community’s commitment to speak up on important policy issues. I hope you all will keep showing up and speaking up!
Q: What’s the best way for folks to stay informed about the seed policy work you’re doing?
Check out the Seed Liaison website, which provides a number of resources (and we will continue adding more), such as crop-specific links for pending plant patents and how to make a third-party prior art submission should one of these patents not pass the novelty test in the eyes of growers or breeders.
We also put together a Seed Liaison newsletter called Seed Sower, which provides options for both weekly newsletters for pending plant patent applications and/or a quarterly newsletter that provides seed-related news beyond pending patents. Click here to subscribe to one or both newsletters as well as to read those in the archive.
Individuals who have questions about this initiative or want to share a concern related to seed competition or IP can send an email to the following USDA address: seedliaison@usda.gov. I also welcome OSA subscribers to email me at khubbard7[at]wisc.edu.
