USDA also announced the formal establishment of the Farmer Seed Liaison initiative, which aims to enhance transparency and reduce confusion for growers and plant breeders operating in a complex seed system. The Farmer Seed Liaison initiative launched in March following publication of the report, More and Better Choices for Farmers: Promoting Fair Competition and Innovation in Seeds and Other Agricultural Inputs. USDA continues to implement the report’s recommendations to help make our nation’s seed system more competitive and resilient.
The Farmer Seed Liaison has now been formalized in the form of a coordinated team of USDA staff and academic cooperators who will work together to develop strategies for connecting farmers, plant breeders, seed producers, and other impacted stakeholders with other federal agencies.
As part of the Farmer Seed Liaison efforts, USDA announced the launch of a new web resource to simplify access to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) pending docket of plant patents and plant breeding-related utility patents. Available on the Farmer Seed Liaison webpage this resource provides automated searches of the database for common crop types, which gives farmers needed transparency about how they are affected by the patent system. Together with the web resources, the Seed Liaison team will help to give farmers a voice in the patent process, similar to AMS’s work on transportation. In addition, the Farmer Seed Liaison team underscores AMS’s commitment to the enforcement of the Federal Seed Act and related seeds competition concerns.
AMS maintains a Federal Seed Act website for farmers and producers to learn more about the Federal Seed Act and to report complaints related to the seed market, such as variety labeling violations. For assistance connecting with the Federal working group on unfair or anticompetitive practices in seeds or for general inquiries or concerns in those areas, farmers and producers may contact the Farmer Seed Liaison team.
Sign-up to receive Seed Sower, the Farmer Seed Liaison newsletter with information about ongoing activities of the Farmer Seed Liaison initiative.
USDA news release
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