Organic Seed Alliance

Organic Seed Speakers and Topics Featured at Organicology Conference
Portland, Oregon - February 26-28, 2009

Seed farmers, companies and researchers are invited to attend Organicology, a three-day gathering of the organic food and farming sector focused on discussions of a sustainable food future. The agenda will include several workshops, an all day intensive, special events, a seed-swap, and trade show booths featuring organic seed and seed-related topics detailed below. For more information about Organicology visit www.organicology.org

Organic Seed Production Intensive - February 26
Organic Seed Production and On-farm Plant Variety Improvement
Do you want to grow seed on your farm for your own use or for sale? Focused on small to medium scale farms this course will deliver the production skills you need to produce seed and basic techniques to improve varieties for your local organic farming conditions. Learn how to grow wet and dry seeded crops including considerations of pollination, isolation, population size, crop management, equipment and the basics of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning seed. In addition, we will explore specific methods used in genetic selection and adaptation of the seed crop to the cultural methods and environmental challenges encountered under organic systems.
Presenters: Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed; Don Tipping, Seven Seeds Farm; John Navazio, Organic Seed Alliance/ WSU; Micaela Colley, Organic Seed Alliance

Seed-related Workshops
Managing Threats of Genetically Engineered Crops
Managing isolation and preventing genetic contamination is a challenge concerning the whole organic industry from seed growers to produce farmers, to retailers. This session will cover strategies growers are using to protect their crop integrity and updates on GMO management strategies, regulations, and litigations in the industry.
Presenters: Matthew Dillon, OSA; George Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety; Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed

The Politics and Potential of Seeds
What is the real dirt on seeds? This session will start with an overview of basic seed related definitions (OP, Hybrid, GMO) and then cover the big picture politics of seed and genetic ownership issues moving into more focused discussion of seed politics in the organic industry and seed production industry. Topics covered will include seed industry consolidation, patenting and control, organic seed certification and international politics, organic seed regulations and NOSB, seed integrity, and concepts of naturalism.
Presenters: Matthew Dillon, OSA; John Navazio, OSA; Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed

Seed Swap
Saving, sharing, and trading seeds is a fundamental farmers right which marks the birth of agriculture. Today it represents a powerful act of ensuring open access to genetic resources, preserving and increasing biodiversity, and acquiring varieties adapted to your bioregion. Come to the seed swap where you can exercise your rights while celebrating with a cold beer, popcorn (a seed) and good company. Bring your seeds to share if you've got them, but no seed or seed experience is required to join in the seed swap. Some envelopes will be provided, but extra bags and envelopes are encouraged. Next spring sow your garden or farm with seeds from the Organicology community. Seed saving information and experts will be available onsite to field your seedy questions. Cold organic beer and popcorn provided.

Keynote Speakers
Dr. Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva, physicist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocate, is the Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. She serves as an ecology advisor to several organizations including the Third World Network and the Asia Pacific People's Environment Network.

In 1993 she was the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, commonly known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize". A contributing editor to People-Centered Development Forum, she has also written several works include, Staying Alive, The Violence of the Green Revolution, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Monoculutures of the Mind and Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit.

View video clips of Dr. Shiva speaking: IFOAM 2007 World Conference, News Commentary on Global Food Crisis June 2008

Paul Roberts
A journalist since 1983, Paul Roberts writes and lectures frequently on the complex interplay of economics, technology, and the natural world. Roberts has also written for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The (UK) Guardian and has appeared in Slate, USA Today, The New Republic, Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, Rolling Stone, and Outside magazine. The End of Food follows the successful publication of Roberts's first book, The End of Oil, published in 2004.

Roberts was a finalist for the National Magazine Award (1999) and for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2005. A long-time observer of energy issues and politics, Roberts appears regularly on national and international television and radio news shows, including CNN's Lou Dobbs, the BBC, PBS NewsHour, MSNBC, CBS Evening News, and on NPR's Morning Edition, On Point, Weekend Edition, and Fresh Air. He lives in Washington State.

View video clips of Paul Roberts speaking: USBC Technology Management Program, World Affairs Council- Food Energy and The Future

Claire Hope Cummings
Claire Hope Cummings is an environmental lawyer, journalist, and the author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds (Beacon Press, March 2008). Claire's stories focus on the environmental and political implications of how we eat and how food and farming reconnects us to each other and the places where we live.

Claire brings three decades of broad experience in agriculture to her work. She has farmed in California and in Vietnam, where she had an organic farm on the Mekong Delta. For four years she was an attorney for the United States Department of Agriculture's Office of General Counsel.

For the last 15 years, Claire has been active in the local food and farming movement in the San Francisco Bay Area, helping to found the Marin County food policy council, and serving on the boards of organizations such as Earth Island Institute, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Food First, and the Elmwood Institute-the predecessor organization for the Center for Ecoliteracy. Claire was awarded a Food and Society Policy Fellowship in 2001. She currently advises The Columbia Foundation's sustainable communities and food system programs.

Organic Seed Alliance
P.O. Box 772
Port Townsend, WA 98368
360-385-7192
fax 360-385-7455