The Kansas Wheat Alliance is making good on its promise to actively enforce the Plant Variety Protection Act, which mandates that all wheat of protected varieties sold for seed be certified and royalties collected.
Three enforcement actions were taken against farmers this fall who tried to sell wheat illegally, two of them in Oklahoma.
“Both of these were clear violations,” said Tim Bartram, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association, which has been reluctant to endorse the increased enforcement but understands the reasoning behind it.
Eldred Schneberger, of Foss, who paid $30,000 for the unauthorized sale of Jagger and Overley varieties, had a record of violations in place with the Department of Agriculture dating back to 2002, Bartram said.
However, Clayton Fisher of Okeene, who admitted to selling the federally protected wheat variety Fuller as non-certified seed without authorization, may not have fully understood just exactly what he was supposed to do, Bartram said.
He was fined $50,000 and will be monitored for a period of time, while being prohibited from planting any certified varieties on his farm.
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure that he knew that what he was doing was a violation,” Bartram said. “The worst thing about it is with the wheat he planted — if he had gone through the paperwork and done it correctly — he could have been legal. Possibly he knew what he was supposed to do but didn’t follow through.”
The fact that he publicly advertised the suspect seed probably sealed his fate, Bartram adds. “When you advertise, there’s not much question (of your intentions),” he said.
A Kansan, Craig Ewy of Hesston, was also caught and paid $25,000 for the admitted unauthorized sale of Overley wheat.
“Our goal is to be responsible to the farmers of Kansas who rely on K-State’s continued development of excellent wheat varieties for their farming success,” said KWA executive director Daryl Strouts, who is based in Manhattan. “But we need to make clear that it is in everybody’s best interest to respect the PVP law. In order to return research money back to K-State, wheat researchers for continued work, we have an obligation to recover royalties and to put a stop to illegal sales of our licensed wheat varieties.”
Bartram said his association has no hard feelings toward the Kansas Wheat Alliance. Strouts is scheduled to attend the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association annual convention Saturday in Oklahoma City and several seed companies and certifying agents will also have booths and be available to answer any questions producers have, Bartram said. In addition, Strouts has been invited to be a featured speaker at the annual convention of the Oklahoma Crop Improvement Association, scheduled for February, to help continue the education process in Oklahoma.
“Kansas, I think, has been somewhat quicker to accept this,” Bartram said. “Colorado was the first to go forward with this. They had a couple of issues right at the first, but once the farmers got used to it, they accepted it.”
Tom Glazier, a certified wheat seed grower from Kingfisher and member of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission has expressed concerns that Oklahoma’s certified seed industry is not big enough to adequately supply demand, and tougher laws should be phased in over time. Bartram said many industry leaders share his concern and more needs to be done to remedy seed shortages.
Bartram suggests more aggressive recruitment of certified seed growers. Roger Osborn, head of Oklahoma Crop Improvement Association, spoke at last year’s wheat grower convention about how farmers can get certified.
“I think there could be some plans and attempts to further stimulate the certified seed industry in the state,” Bartram said. “I think that’s something we’ll see in the near future, where several in the wheat industry will sit down and look at some ideas.”
Those will likely include workshops on what it takes to become an approved seed cleaner, in addition to the seed certification process.
“The Clearfield wheats were the first to come out with a patented gene in them five or six years ago,” Bartram said. “Why BASF did not charge a royalty on them as a condition of release I don’t know, but there had to be a mechanism to enforce variety protection on those, in order for the university to release them. And that was the impetus for some of what we now see happening. That was just the first step.”
On a similar note, genetic improvement is the focus of this year’s Oklahoma wheat convention, with three wheat breeders and a geneticist scheduled to speak.
Further research investment, including biotechnology, is crucial to making wheat production more profitable and more competitive with other crops, Bartram said. “The nitrogen use efficiency gene is the one that really excites me more than anything, especially here in Oklahoma. Our soils take a lot more nitrogen than in Kansas,” he said.
Alan Tracy, president of Washington-based U.S. Wheat Associates, will also be at the convention to talk about how attitudes worldwide are changing in favor of biotechnology. Bartram cites a press release distributed by the Vatican earlier this year that stated opposition to biotech crops was contributing to world hunger.
“This year we had our third or fourth largest crop in history, and prices still went up,” Bartram said. “This last summer, record crops and record prices changed a lot of opinions on GMOs. Both Japan and South Korea for the first time bought GMO corn. Things are really changing overseas.”
While rapidly rising seed corn and soybean prices have been a concern in the Midwest — where Monsanto dominates the market — Bartram said he expects universities to remain the drivers in wheat development, which should keep costs down.
“I think it will remain in the public arena whereas corn, cotton and soybeans are concentrated in private industry. I don’t think there’s even a soybean breeder at Kansas State anymore,” he said. “But I think wheat will stay with the model of universities being heavily involved.”
Enid, Okla. —
