Open Source Seed Initiative

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The Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) is an organization that developed and maintains a mechanism through which plant breeders can designate the new crop varieties they have bred as open source. This mechanism is advanced as an alternative to patent-protected seeds sold by large agriculture companies such as Monsanto or DuPont. [1] OSSI is a U.S. based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization focusing on establishing a protected commons of open source varieties and on educational and outreach activities associated with the development of this open source seed commons and on seed rights and issues related to the control of seed.

Contents

The OSSI was founded in 2012 by a group of plant breeders, farmers, and seed companies. [2] Founders include Jack Kloppenburg, [3] Irwin Goldman, [3] Claire Luby, Thomas Michaels, Frank Morton, [4] Jonathan Spero, Alejandro Argumedo, and Jahi Chappell. Tom Stearns was an early supporter and advisor to the OSSI founders. Carol Deppe and C.R. Lawn joined the OSSI board of directors in its early stages, providing invaluable contributions from the freelance breeding community and the seed industry. OSSI is governed by a board of directors and as of July 2017 includes 36 plant breeders and 46 seed company partners in its work. Members of the group are unhappy with the patenting of plant varieties, as they say the patenting of seeds restricts plant breeders' freedom and increases the power of large seed companies. [3] [5] Taking inspiration from open source software, the OSSI seeks to create a "protected commons" of open-source seed varieties as an alternative to patented or otherwise legally restricted seeds. [4] At first the OSSI tried to draft a legally-defensible license, but they found that the principle of software licenses did not translate easily to plants, as a license on plant seeds would need to continue to each new generations of plants, quickly creating a huge amount of legal work. [4] The OSSI eventually decided to use an informal Pledge printed on every seed packet or transmitted along with the seed, both for simplicity and because they felt this less restrictive approach was more in line with the goals of the project.

Pledge and mission

The Open Source Seed Initiative Pledge asks farmers, gardeners, and plant breeders who use the seed to refrain from patenting or licensing the seed or derivatives from it, and to pass on the Pledge to any derivatives made. [1] The Pledge states: "You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others' use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this Pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives." Use of the Pledge ensures the four open source seed freedoms for this and future generations, including:

  1. The freedom to save or grow seed for replanting or for any other purpose.
  2. The freedom to share, trade, or sell seed to others.
  3. The freedom to trial and study seed and to share or publish information about it.
  4. The freedom to select or adapt the seed, make crosses with it, or use it to breed new lines and varieties.

OSSI's mission bears some similarities to the mission of organizations such as Seed Savers Exchange, but it is different in that OSSI provides an explicit Pledge with its seeds that is designed to keep seeds free through the establishment of a protected commons. OSSI differs from plant breeders' rights and plant variety protection in that the Pledge allows recipients to do anything they want with the seed except restrict it. In addition, it automatically extends the Pledge to new varieties developed from OSSI-Pledged parents. In addition, OSSI does not Pledge heirlooms or indigenous varieties. It only Pledges varieties contributed and Pledged by their breeders.

OSSI involves plant breeders and seed company partners in its mission. First OSSI works with plant breeders who commit to making one or more of their varieties available exclusively under the OSSI Pledge. OSSI Partner Seed Companies sell OSSI-Pledged varieties, acknowledge the OSSI breeders in their variety descriptions, label OSSI-Pledged varieties with the OSSI logo, and include the Pledge and information about OSSI in their catalogs and on their websites. The Seed List of OSSI-Pledged varieties gives complete descriptions and photos for each OSSI-Pledged variety and links to every OSSI Partner Seed Company that carries each variety.

OSSI also places articles in magazines for gardeners and farmers during the seed ordering season so as to attract visitors to its website and channel those visitors to its seed company partners where they can buy the seed. See, for example, Carol Deppe's article in the January issue of Acres/USA- Thirty-three Great Open-Source Organic-Adapted Vegetable Varieties. OSSI thus creates a market for ethically produced, "freed seed" analogous to the markets for "fair trade" and "organic" products.

Influences and early history

The work of University of Wisconsin sociologist Jack Kloppenburg, particularly his book First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (2nd ed.) [6] influenced the development of OSSI. Originally published in 1990, then updated in 2000, this book chronicles the vast changes in seed sovereignty that took place during the 20th century through the rise of modern plant breeding approaches, the expansion of intellectual property rights, and emerging crop biotechnologies. Kloppenburg's work explored global consequences of legal control over crop seeds during an era of heavy consolidation in the seed industry. Kloppenburg himself was inspired by the work of writers and activists Pat Roy Mooney, a Canadian, and Cary Fowler, an American, who began engaging with issues of the public versus private ownership of seed and genetic resources in the 1970s. While some of these views were criticized by plant breeders in the 1980s and 1990s, Kloppenburg argued that the expansion of intellectual property rights over crop genetic resources, including cultivars, genes, and plant traits, is an issue of concern for the future of global agriculture. Kloppenburg documented the ever-increasing encroachments upon the traditional rights of farmers, gardeners, and plant breeders to save, replant, share, or breed with seed, as well as forced plant breeders and all others interested in crop genetic resources to confront the degree to which they had lost or were losing "freedom to operate" with their seeds. (This term "freedom to operate" has come to mean the degree to which seeds and the genes contained in those seeds can be freely used by breeders, gardeners, farmers, and seed producers without legal restriction.)

One of the consequences of an increasing global awareness of the finite nature of crop genetic resources and the debate over ownership of these resources has been the establishment of gene banks and seed banks in many countries, notably Fowler's recent efforts to develop the Svalbard Global Seed Vault off the coast of Norway in the Arctic Svalbard Archipelago. Kloppenburg's focus on the ownership and control of those resources still remains one of the most pressing questions for future generations.

International efforts, coordinated through the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Environment Program, and manifest through agreements such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Convention on Biological Diversity, have sought global solutions to sustainable and fair use of the planet's crop genetic resources. While these efforts are ongoing, significant limitations to global germplasm exchange still challenge and limit their potential gains.

Building from these ideas, plant breeder Thomas Michaels proposed General Public License for Plant Germplasm (GPLPG) in 1999. [7] The objective of the license was to build a pool of shared plant germplasm that could be freely used for breeding new crop varieties. The two key features of this license were 1) that GPLPG varieties were freely available for use in as a parent any breeding program and 2) that new varieties developed using one or more GPLPG parents must also be designated as GPLPG. The license was explicitly modeled on the General Public License that had been developed by Richard Stallman and others in the computer software community. General Public License for Plant Germplasm was the first license of its kind to treat the plant genotype as if it were computer source code that can be freely used in a new program (crop variety) so long as the new program (crop variety) is also designated as General Public License.

Open Source Seed Initiative, founded some 15 years later, creates a seed commons involving the method of germplasm exchange based upon a Pledge. Any user can gain access to the germplasm and use it for any purpose, as long as they pledge not to restrict others' use of this same germplasm as well as to pass the Pledge along if they share or sell the germplasm. OSSI provides maximal freedom to operate for those who wish to save, replant, share, sell, trade, breed, and otherwise innovate with seeds.

Release of OSSI varieties and current activity

In April 2014, the OSSI released its first 36 open-source seed varieties. [4]

NPR opined in their report in 2014 that large seed companies would be unlikely to use open-source seeds, as patented seeds are more profitable. And they speculated that farmers may have trouble finding open-source seeds for sale. [3] However by July, 2017, OSSI had over 375 varieties of more than 50 crops bred by 36 breeders and being sold by 46 seed company partners. While varieties have been contributed by public sector plant breeders at universities and not-for-profit organizations, most OSSI varieties have been contributed by freelance plant breeders and seed companies.

On 10 August 2015 an OSSI-Pledged red romaine lettuce variety called 'Outredgeous' bred by farmer-breeder Frank Morton became the first plant variety to be planted, harvested and eaten entirely in space, as a part of Expedition 44 to the International Space Station. [8]

OSSI has also become a topic of academic research in both the biological and social sciences. OSSI appears in The Sociology of Food and Agriculture [9] by Michael Carolan. Several scientific journal articles [10] [11] [12] have explored ideas surrounding open source plant breeding, genetic variation, and intellectual property.

OSSI was highlighted in Rachel Cernansky's piecem "How 'Open Source' Seed Producers from the US to India are Changing Global Food Production", originally published in Ensia magazine, and reprinted in many different outlets, including Vox and Global Voices.

OSSI has developed a relationship with Seed Savers Exchange. Seed Saver's new online and print editions of the Garden Seed Inventory will label all OSSI-Pledged varieties with the OSSI logo and the name of the breeder, and will include the Pledge in the beginning of the book.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seed bank</span> Backup seed storage

A seed bank stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity; hence it is a type of gene bank. There are many reasons to store seeds. One is to preserve the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, disease resistance, drought tolerance, nutritional quality, taste, etc. of crops. Another is to forestall loss of genetic diversity in rare or imperiled plant species in an effort to conserve biodiversity ex situ. Many plants that were used centuries ago by humans are used less frequently now; seed banks offer a way to preserve that historical and cultural value. Collections of seeds stored at constant low temperature and low moisture are guarded against loss of genetic resources that are otherwise maintained in situ or in field collections. These alternative "living" collections can be damaged by natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war. Seed banks are considered seed libraries, containing valuable information about evolved strategies to combat plant stress, and can be used to create genetically modified versions of existing seeds. The work of seed banks often span decades and even centuries. Most seed banks are publicly funded and seeds are usually available for research that benefits the public.

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, is a comprehensive international agreement in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, which aims at guaranteeing food security through the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of the world's plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from its use, as well as the recognition of farmers' rights. It was signed in 2001 in Madrid, and entered into force on 29 June 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center</span> International plant breeding organization

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center is a non-profit research-for-development organization that develops improved varieties of wheat and maize with the aim of contributing to food security, and innovates agricultural practices to help boost production, prevent crop disease and improve smallholder farmers' livelihoods. CIMMYT is one of the 15 CGIAR centers. CIMMYT is known for hosting the world's largest maize and wheat genebank at its headquarters in Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Landrace</span> Locally adapted variety of a species

A landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, often traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolation from other populations of the species. Landraces are distinct from cultivars and from standard breeds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants</span> Intergovernmental organization

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants or UPOV is a treaty body with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Its objective is to provide an effective system for plant variety protection. It does so by defining a blueprint regulation to be implemented by its members in national law. The expression UPOV Convention also refers to one of the three instruments that relate to the union, namely the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, 1978 Act of the UPOV Convention and 1961 Act of the UPOV Convention with Amendments of 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant breeders' rights</span>

Plant breeders' rights (PBR), also known as plant variety rights (PVR), are rights granted in certain places to the breeder of a new variety of plant that give the breeder exclusive control over the propagating material and harvested material of a new variety for a number of years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agricultural biodiversity</span> Agricultural concept

Agricultural biodiversity or agrobiodiversity is a subset of general biodiversity pertaining to agriculture. It can be defined as "the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels that sustain the ecosystem structures, functions and processes in and around production systems, and that provide food and non-food agricultural products.” It is managed by farmers, pastoralists, fishers and forest dwellers, agrobiodiversity provides stability, adaptability and resilience and constitutes a key element of the livelihood strategies of rural communities throughout the world. Agrobiodiversity is central to sustainable food systems and sustainable diets. The use of agricultural biodiversity can contribute to food security, nutrition security, and livelihood security, and it is critical for climate adaptation and climate mitigation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seed saving</span> Practice of saving plant reproductive material

In agriculture and gardening, seed saving is the practice of saving seeds or other reproductive material from vegetables, grain, herbs, and flowers for use from year to year for annuals and nuts, tree fruits, and berries for perennials and trees. This is the traditional way farms and gardens were maintained for the last 12,000 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germplasm</span> Genetic material of an organism

Germplasm refers to genetic resources such as seeds, tissues, and DNA sequences that are maintained for the purpose of animal and plant breeding, conservation efforts, agriculture, and other research uses. These resources may take the form of seed collections stored in seed banks, trees growing in nurseries, animal breeding lines maintained in animal breeding programs or gene banks. Germplasm collections can range from collections of wild species to elite, domesticated breeding lines that have undergone extensive human selection. Germplasm collection is important for the maintenance of biological diversity, food security, and conservation efforts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heirloom plant</span> Historic food crop cultivar

An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, heritage fruit, or heirloom vegetable is an old cultivar of a plant used for food that is grown and maintained by gardeners and farmers, particularly in isolated communities of the Western world. These were commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but are not used in modern large-scale agriculture.

<i>Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser</i> Supreme Court of Canada decision

Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser [2004] 1 S.C.R. 902, 2004 SCC 34 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on patent rights for biotechnology, between a Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, and the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto. The court heard the question of whether Schmeiser's intentionally growing genetically modified plants constituted "use" of Monsanto's patented genetically modified plant cells. By a 5-4 majority, the court ruled that it did. The Supreme Court also ruled 9-0 that Schmeiser did not have to pay Monsanto their technology use fee, damages or costs, as Schmeiser did not receive any benefit from the technology. The case drew worldwide attention and is widely misunderstood to concern what happens when farmers' fields are accidentally contaminated with patented seed. However, by the time the case went to trial, all claims of accidental contamination had been dropped; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted. Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genetic use restriction technology</span> Methods for controlling the use of GMOs

Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), also known as terminator technology or suicide seeds, is designed to restrict access to "genetic materials and their associated phenotypic traits." The technology works by activating specific genes using a controlled stimulus in order to cause second generation seeds to be either infertile or to not have one or more of the desired traits of the first generation plant. GURTs can be used by agricultural firms to enhance protection of their innovations in genetically modified organisms by making it impossible for farmers to reproduce the desired traits on their own. Another possible use is to prevent the escape of genes from genetically modified organisms into the surrounding environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crop Trust</span>

The Crop Trust, officially known as the Global Crop Diversity Trust, is an international nonprofit organization with a secretariat in Bonn, Germany. Its mission is to conserve and make available the world's crop diversity for food security.

The Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB) is a research institute of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. It is the national biotechnology research center and repository for all crops other than rice, which is handled by the Philippine Rice Research Institute.

Crop diversity or crop biodiversity is the variety and variability of crops, plants used in agriculture, including their genetic and phenotypic characteristics. It is a subset of a specific element of agricultural biodiversity. Over the past 50 years, there has been a major decline in two components of crop diversity; genetic diversity within each crop and the number of species commonly grown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant breeding</span> Humans changing traits, ornamental/crops

Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of applications. The most frequently addressed agricultural traits are those related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, grain or biomass yield, end-use quality characteristics such as taste or the concentrations of specific biological molecules and ease of processing.

The U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) is a network of institutions and agencies led by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the effort to conserve and facilitate the use of the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants and their wild relatives.

Bowman v. Monsanto Co., 569 U.S. 278 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court patent decision in which the Court unanimously affirmed the decision of the Federal Circuit that the patent exhaustion doctrine does not permit a farmer to plant and grow saved, patented seeds without the patent owner's permission. The case arose after Vernon Hugh Bowman, an Indiana farmer, bought transgenic soybean crop seeds from a local grain elevator for his second crop of the season. Monsanto originally sold the seed from which these soybeans were grown to farmers under a limited use license that prohibited the farmer-buyer from using the seeds for more than a single season or from saving any seed produced from the crop for replanting. The farmers sold their soybean crops to the local grain elevator, from which Bowman then bought them. After Bowman replanted the crop seeds for his second harvest, Monsanto filed a lawsuit claiming that he infringed on their patents by replanting soybeans without a license. In response, Bowman argued that Monsanto's claims were barred under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, because all future generations of soybeans were embodied in the first generation that was originally sold.

The Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 (PVPA), 7 U.S.C. §§ 2321-2582, is an intellectual property statute in the United States. The PVPA gives breeders up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties. A major expression of plant breeders' rights in the United States, the PVPA grants protection similar to that available through patents, but these legal schemes differ in critical respects. The PVPA should not be confused with plant patents, which are limited to asexually reproduced plants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant genetic resources</span>

Plant genetic resources describe the variability within plants that comes from human and natural selection over millennia. Their intrinsic value mainly concerns agricultural crops.

References

  1. 1 2 Shemkus, Sarah (2 May 2014). "Fighting the seed monopoly: 'We want to make free seed a sort of meme'". The Guardian . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  2. ↑ Roach, Margaret (December 2015 – January 2016). "The Open Source Seed Initiative: Let's Take Back Our Seeds". Mother Earth News . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Charles, Dan (17 April 2014). "Plant Breeders Release First 'Open Source Seeds'". NPR . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Hamilton, Lisa M (Summer 2014). "Linux for Lettuce". Virginia Quarterly Review . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  5. ↑ Wall, Tim (22 April 2014). "Open-Source Seeds Fight Corporate Crop Control". Discovery News . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  6. ↑ Kloppenburg, Jack (2005). First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (2nd ed.). University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN   978-0299192440.
  7. ↑ Michaels, Tom. "General Public Release for Plant Germplasm". Archived from the original on 1999-10-10.
  8. ↑ Brownlee, Lisa (10 August 2015). "International Space Station Astronauts Look Forward To Today's First Taste Of Space Harvest". Forbes . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Carolan, Michael (2012). The Sociology of Food and Agriculture. Earthscan Food and Agriculture. Routledge. ISBN   978-0-415-69858-0.
  10. ↑ Niedz, Randall P.; Luby, Claire H.; Dawson, Julie C.; Goldman, Irwin L. (2016). "Assessment and Accessibility of Phenotypic and Genotypic Diversity of Carrot (Daucus carota L. var. sativus) Cultivars Commercially Available in the United States". PLOS ONE. 11 (12): e0167865. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1167865L. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167865 . PMC   5154522 . PMID   27959910.
  11. ↑ Luby, Claire H.; Goldman, Irwin L. (2016). "Freeing Crop Genetics through the Open Source Seed Initiative". PLOS Biology. 14 (4): e1002441. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002441 . PMC   4836679 . PMID   27093567.
  12. ↑ Luby, Claire H.; Kloppenburg, Jack; Michaels, Thomas E.; Goldman, Irwin L. (2015). "Enhancing Freedom to Operate for Plant Breeders and Farmers through Open Source Plant Breeding". Crop Science. 55 (6): 2481–2488. doi: 10.2135/cropsci2014.10.0708 .
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