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Untitled document
State of Organic Seed Symposium
Organic Seed Alliance, in partnership with the Organic Farming Conference and the National Organic Coalition, and with sponsorship from Organic Valley Cooperative and Clif Bar Family Foundation, will be hosting a one-day working symposium - “State of Organic Seed” - on February 25th at the La Crosse Radisson.
Organic food integrity begins with organic seed integrity. There remain barriers and concerns regarding usage of organic seed including lack of seed availability; greater need for genetics appropriate to organic market needs; lack of access to lines free of contamination from GE traits; need for greater investments in organic seed systems; technical barriers producing quality disease-free seed; variance in usage of organic seed by farmers; differing degrees of priority placed on organic seed by certifiers; and a lack of easily accessible information to source seed and answer seed related questions. There are currently many regional and national initiatives, organizations, committees, and individuals working on organic seed issues. Opinions, perceptions, and strategies are naturally varied, and yet there are opportunities for creating collaborative solutions.
The State of Organic Seed Symposium will be an opportunity for the organic community to discuss the challenges, find shared agreement on priorities, and create an Organic Seed Report and Action Plan to move forward. This will not be a traditional conference with presentations and panels from “experts”. All participants will lend their expertise in a strategic planning effort that will be broken out by crop types, with periodic reporting to the group as a whole. Additionally, OSA is conducting a national survey of organic farmers regarding organic seed usage, experience and concerns. Initial findings from the survey will be shared and discussed at the event. Surveys of the certifiers and the seed industry will follow. There will be an initial presentation of data from the farmer survey.
The Symposium will be limited to 120 participants, and will seek to have representation from organic farmers, certifying agencies, organic trade (retailers/processors/distributors), non-profits, university researchers, and the seed sector. We are particularly in need of representatives from the organic trade and certifiers, but welcome interest from all sectors.
To apply to participate, please fill out this participation form and email to Matthew@seedalliance.org or call 360.385.7192
Please Note Before Applying: This is not a technical, "how to", conference on organic seed production. This is a policy meeting - a strategic planning process - to facilitate improvements in breeding, seed production, information sharing, and policy related to organic seed systems. While you do not need to be an expert to attend, we are looking for folks interested in big picture thinking and collaborative system based solutions.
Click here for Agenda
Preliminary Data & Summary of Organic Producers Seed Survey sent to symposium participants only.
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