During a stop in Jasper County Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced efforts to lower prices for farmers by increasing competition in the seed market.
Prices rose on average by 463% between 1990 and 2020 for crops planted mostly with genetically modified seed, like corn and soybeans. To understand the drivers, Rollins said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is expanding its memorandum of understanding with another federal agency.
“The Department of Justice will be shining an even brighter light on seed pricing practices, on seed licensing, on seed relabeling and on barriers facing independent seed companies,” Rollins said. “[We’re] working very, very hard to do everything we can to support our farmers and ranchers.”
Rollins also announced $180 million for the USDA’s new Seed Sovereignty Initiative. Over the next two years, the agency plans to genetically sequence collections of major crops in the USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System.
“Our intention as a public entity would be able to make that available to U.S. companies on a licensing basis and not an exclusive basis,” said Scott Hutchins, USDA under secretary for Research, Education, and Economics and chief scientist.
This will open more competition in the seed sector, Hutchins said.
“But the companies themselves have to be able to exist and be able to create an opportunity to put that germplasm into their portfolio,” he added.
A living library
The National Plant Germplasm System is often described as a massive, living library. But instead of checking out books, researchers and crop breeders can access seeds, tissue cultures and other plant material. They often look for genetic traits, like pest-resistance and drought-tolerance, as they develop new varieties.
With gene banks scattered across the U.S., including Iowa, the National Germplasm System maintains over 600,000 genetically unique plant samples. They represent nearly 17,000 different species from around the world.
“It's a tremendous treasure trove for agriculture, but it hasn't really been developed to the degree that needs to be developed,” Hutchins said, explaining that genetic sequencing more quickly identifies desirable traits in plants compared to traditional means.
Hutchins estimated less than 10% of the germplasm in the USDA collection has been sequenced so far. Using advanced tools, like artificial intelligence, will speed up this work, he said.
“Our intention is to really leapfrog and jump this,” Hutchins said. “We know that China, for example, has been actively making accessions and sequencing what they need.”
An accession is a genetically unique sample of plant material with information about where and when it was collected.
Hutchins said the Seed Sovereignty Initiative will also help the USDA identify gaps in the collection.
“That's why we refer to it as seed sovereignty. We need to make sure that we have the germplasm and that we have the capabilities necessary to succeed within the United States,” Hutchins said.
Before the $180 million announcement, Hutchins said most of the resources for the National Plant Germplasm System have gone toward maintaining the collection.
For example, seeds have a lifespan, the length of which depends on the species and variety and the conditions they’re stored in. But eventually, they need to be planted to produce the next generation of viable seeds.
The National Plant Germplasm System released a 10-year plan in 2023 laying out goals for more funding, space to store and regenerate plant material and staff, especially with expertise to conserve wild species. The agency said this would help reduce and prevent backlogs at the 22 gene banks in the system.
One of those gene banks, the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, houses more than 60,000 samples of corn, cucumbers, squash, carrots, amaranth, quinoa, woody ornamentals and medicinal plants.
The USDA recently announced plans to design a National Plant Germplasm System Centralized Distribution Center in Ames. At the event in Jasper County, Rollins said the $12 million investment is separate from the $180 million for the Seed Sovereignty Initiative.
According to reporting by Politico, that $12 million stems from redirected funding from the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland. The USDA is shuttering the facility this month.
