U.S. PROGRAM TO PROTECT SEEDS MISMANAGED, LAWSUIT CHARGES
Washington Post
October 28, 1987
Author: Ward Sinclair; Washington Post Staff Writer
Estimated printed pages: 3
Organizations from the United States and 25 other countries filed suit in U.S. District
Court here yesterday, charging the Agriculture Department with mismanagement of the
seed-bank program that is intended to preserve tens of thousands of plant varieties, many
of them rare or irreplaceable
The groups, with the Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends as lead
plaintiff, asked the court to bar USDA from any further activity in the National Plant
Germplasm System until it provides assurances that the seed collection is adequately
protected from deterioration.
Officials of USDA's Agricultural Research Service, which oversees the main seed bank at
Fort Collins, Colo., and at smaller sites around the country, were not available for
comment.
The U.S. program, the most extensive in the world, collects and stores seeds that are
made available to plant breeders for developing new varieties with more desirable traits
such as higher yield and resistance to disease and adverse weather.
The suit said that despite progress made by USDA, "there are serious financial, practical,
logistical and institutional problems hampering the development of an adequate
germplasm preservation program for this country."
The suit was buttressed by a recent confidential report of the International Board for Plant
Genetic Resources, which graded the Fort Collins storage site substandard in five
categories and "acceptable" in 21 categories.
The board reported that seed banks in some other countries were in more serious disarray,
but Fort Collins was cited for understaffing, failure to maintain adequate seed sample
sizes, poorly designed fire protection, and an inadequate rate of regeneration of seed
varieties.
Jeremy Rifkin, head of the Foundation on Economic Trends, said the new report and
earlier critiques by official bodies provided increasing evidence that USDA has created
"a major environmental crisis" by allowing the seed program to deteriorate to a point that
rare plant germplasm is being lost.
The suit charged that curators of the U.S. collections have failed to conduct required
germination tests to assure seed viability, that replenishment of seed supplies by growing
out those with waning viability is inadequate, and that a large percentage of the
collections are so poorly identified that they are of little use to plant breeders.
The suit also contended that the seed program is understaffed -- the international board
review found that Fort Collins did not have a seed physiologist -- and that many storage
facilities are inadequate. House and Senate Appropriations committees this month
approved a USDA request for $1 million to begin planning and designing an addition to
the Fort Collins laboratory.
The suit is part of a long-running dispute between Rifkin's foundation and the department
over management of the germplasm program. The plaintiffs in yesterday's suit, including
Canadian farmers, international agricultural organizations and individuals, charged in a
1985 suit that USDA had failed to file an environmental impact statement for the seed
program under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
That suit was dropped after USDA agreed to conduct an environmental assessment -- a
prelude to a full-scale impact statement. But the assessment found that the seed program
had no environmental impact. That finding led to yesterday's litigation, which argued that
USDA had failed to take the "hard look" required by NEPA
Edition: FINAL
Section: A SECTION
Page: a9
Company Name: AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT; FOUNDATION ON ECONOMIC
TRENDS; AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE; INTERNATIONAL BOARD
FOR PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES
Index Terms: NEWS NATIONAL; JEREMY RIFKIN; Lawsuits; Plants; Business
management; Arizona; District of Columbia
Copyright 1987 The Washington Post
Record Number: 89244