Main Conference > Program > Pre-Conference Intellectual Property Rights on Seed Symposium
Date: Thursday, February 27th, 2025
Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
In Person: Oregon State University, 725 SW 26th St, Corvallis, OR 97331.
Virtual: Organic Seed Commons & Zoom
Languages offered: English
The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) on Seed Symposium will include resource sharing, strategy discussions on alternative IPR models, and inform future recommendations to support organic seed growers, plant breeders, and researchers in navigating the complexities of IPR used on seed. The Symposium aims to create a shared baseline of knowledge about IPR and provide opportunities for relationship building that could lead to an ongoing coalition of alternative IPR advocates. Read on below to learn about the featured speakers.
Agenda
| Time | Subject |
|---|---|
| 8:00-8:30 | CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST |
| 8:30-8:45 | Welcome & Opening Introductions, announcements, and logistics |
| 8:45-10:15 | CONNECTION & CONTAINER WEAVING Creating the container for our time, setting expectations around the culture of how we will spend our time together. Introducing the tools and modes we will use to integrate individual and collective learning. Getting a chance to connect with other participants. |
| 10:15-11:15 | SESSION 1: CURRENT MECHANISMS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 101 CONVERSATIONS / US PATENT AND TRADEMARK PROCESS Bill Tracy, University of Wisconsin-Madison Paulina Jenney, University of Wisconsin-Madison Moderator: Cathleen McCluskey |
| 11:15-11:30 | Session 1 Debrief |
| 11:30-12:30 | LUNCH |
| 12:30-1:45 | SESSION 2: ADAPTING CURRENT MECHANISMS DEFENSIVE PUBLICATION, TRADEMARK, MODEL MATERIAL TRANSFER AGREEMENTS Emily Spiegel, Vermont School of Law Tessa Peters, The Land Institute Julie Dawson, University of Wisconsin-Madison Moderator: Chanda Robinson Banks |
| 1:45-2:00 | Session 2 Debrief |
| 2-2:30 | BREAK |
| 2:30-3:45 | Session 3: Building Enhanced Alternatives Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Copyleft Helena Gonzales, Native Seeds/SEARCH Amy June Breesman, Local Contexts Jamie Chevalier, Quail Seeds Moderator: Chanda Robinson Banks |
| 3:45-4:00 | Session 3 Debrief |
| 4:00-5:00 | Orienting to What’s Next |
Featured Speakers
Amy June Breesman, Local Contexts
Amy June (Eastern Shawnee) is a seed keeper, artist, and researcher born and raised in the mid-Atlantic and currently based in Lawrence, Kansas where she co-manages Good Way Farm. She works with Local Contexts to promote data sovereignty and affirm Indigenous People’s rights to their own cultural materials, biological materials and varied knowledges. Assisting adoption of the Labels and Notices through the Local Contexts Hub, she and her colleagues pursue more just methodologies in data, research, breeding, collections and archives.
Jamie Chevalier, Quail Seeds
Jamie Chevalier is the proprietor of Quail Seeds in the Coast Range of Northern California. She has been growing and foraging food for 45 years, first in Alaska and then in California. Over that time she’s experienced food and seed issues as a homesteader, commercial fisher, professional gardener, teacher, writer/editor, and seed grower/seller. For the last 20 years, she’s been involved in finding, preserving, storytelling, and adapting open-pollinated seed and raising awareness of seed issues, first at Bountiful Gardens Seeds, and then at her own company, Quail Seeds. Her focus is on home and subsistence gardeners, whose millions of small plots make up a significant proportion of the landscape. By making savable/adaptable seeds available–along with information on regenerative techniques, perennial crops, attracting native pollinators, and climate adaptation–she hopes to increase the resilience of our social and biological landscapes.
Julie Dawson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Julie Dawson is a Professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, training students in the plant breeding and plant genetics, horticulture, and agroecology graduate fields. Research interests include the use of genetic resources in plant breeding for organic systems and methods for participatory selection and variety development. She is also the state Extension specialist for regional food systems and does applied research for growers serving local food markets. She leads a project called the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative, which works with plant breeders to test varieties with farmers, gardeners, chefs and other culinary professionals. She is an academic cooperator with the USDA on the Farmer Seed Liaison initiative, focused on promoting fair competition and innovation in the seed industry.
Helena Gonzales, Native Seeds/SEARCH
Helena Gonzales (she/her) graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelors in Plant Science with a focus in genetics, genomics, and propagation. Born and raised in Tucson, she is Hopi and Navajo. Helena has dedicated her life to crop conservation and research to preserve the diversity and the history of heirloom crops. She uses this knowledge at Native Seeds/SEARCH to maintain seeds in the seed bank, work in the Conservation Garden, and process seeds in the Seed Lab.
Paulina Jenney, University of Wisconsin-Madison/USDA Farmer Seed Liaison Initiative
Paulina Jenney is an Outreach Program Manager with the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences, where she supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Seed Liaison Initiative. She is co-author of USDA’s 2023 report, More and Better Choices for Farmers: Promoting Fair Competition and Innovation in Seeds and Other Agricultural Inputs. Born and raised in the desert southwest, Paulina earned her bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and creative writing from the University of Arizona before spending several years learning about traditional and small scale agricultural techniques from practitioners around the world. She has worked for the Institute of the Environment, Conservation International – Perú, and taught English and environmental stewardship as a Fulbright grantee in northern Spain. She earned her M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana, where she managed the PEAS Farm seed garden and studied plant breeder perspectives on intellectual property rights.
Tessa Peters, The Land Institute
Tessa Peters is the Director of Strategy at The Land Institute. Peters earned a BS in Physics from Colorado State University, a BS in Agroecology from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has managed the Kernza trademark for the past five years. She is passionate about developing methods to improve collaborations around intellectual property rights and sharing. She lives and works from the sagebrush steppes of southeastern Wyoming.
Emily Spiegel, Vermont Law and Graduate School
Emily Spiegel is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS) at Vermont Law and Graduate School. Emily leads CAFS projects related to food systems biodiversity and natural resources. Before joining CAFS in 2017, Emily worked at the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. She earned her JD from Duke University School of Law. A returned Peace Corps volunteer from Jordan, Emily’s background focuses on agriculture and international development. She has previous experience with the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Bill Tracy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bill Tracy is a professor of plant and agroecosystem sciences at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He breeds sweet corn and studies the genetics, biochemistry, and physiology of sweet corn quality and productivity. He received a B.S. and M.S. in plant and soil science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding from Cornell University. In 1984, after brief stints in industry, Bill joined the department of agronomy at UW-Madison as an assistant professor. He served as department chair for 14 years and as interim dean of the college for 14 months. Bill and his team have developed sweet corn inbreds and OP varieties that are in commerce on every continent where sweet corn grows. While Bill’s favorite place is in the corn field, his favorite task is preparing grad students for plant breeding careers, a significant number of whom have joined the organic plant breeding community.
Planning Committee:
Paulina Jenney, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Cathleen McCluskey, Organic Seed Alliance
Tessa Peters, The Land Institute
Chanda Robinson Banks, Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance
