WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new report by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) charges that U.S. farmers are being harmed by the decline in the nation’s public seed supply.

“Everything starts with seeds, and the continued growth of sustainable and organic agriculture and local, healthy food systems across the country – along with farmers’ ability to meet the challenges of climate change and food security – depends on this critical first building block,” said Juli Obudzinski, NSAC senior policy specialist.

“Over the past 25 years, there has been a steady decline in investment in public sector breeding programs housed primarily within our nation’s land grant university system and USDA research facilities.”

She added “this slow atrophy of public funding to support improved plant varieties means that farmers have been left with fewer and fewer seed choices over the years and are ill-prepared to meet 21st century needs.”

The findings were part of the proceedings of a two-day summit in March, the Summit on Seeds and Breeds for 21st Century Agriculture, and sponsored by the RAFI, a farmer-based nonprofit based in Pittsboro, N.C., and member of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), based in Washington, D.C.

RAFI and other key stakeholders within the agricultural research community expressed their increased concerns about farmers’ limited access to seed and “the narrowing of our country’s agricultural plant and animal genetic diversity, consolidation within the seed industry, the decline in public cultivar development.”

The report also alleges these trends are impacting farmers’ ability to confront the issues of weather pattern changes and global food security.

“For example, farmers in many regions of the country currently rely on seeds that were bred for other regions of the country or that no longer meet changing climatic-growing conditions and pest and disease pressures,” Obudzinski said. “Without renewed funding for the development of publicly available plant varieties, our farmers will be at a competitive disadvantage.”

The summit brought together more than 35 breeders, researchers, farmers, academics and representatives of germplasm banks and nonprofit organizations to discuss the state of the nation’s seed supply and develop recommendations for reinvigorating public breeding research and increasing seed availability.

“The challenges we face in our U.S. and global food systems urgently require us to shift our focus toward building greater resilience into our agricultural systems,” said Michael Sligh, the Just Foods program director with RAFI. “Our current systems are too genetically uniform and have far too short cropping rotations, thus leaving our agricultural systems very vulnerable.”

But looking at the RAFI’s research from a producer, agronomist and service provider perspective, Clarke McGrath, Iowa State University extension field agronomist, said, “We don’t look to the public sector for genetics, for the most part.

“We look to the global biotech/life science companies for our elite genetics for corn and soybean production. These companies spend billions competing to develop and market the most durable, profitable, productive and consistent products to growers.”

On the other hand, he said public institutions historically have done much to develop genetics as well – either on their own or in partnership with industry.

“Working in the public sector, I definitely see the erosion of funding and capacity to do the agronomic research and development that needs to be continued,” he said.

“Sometimes where there are gaps, or industry and the public are not on the same page, public institutions should fill that void.”