Untitled  <blockquote><div align="center">   <strong><h3> National Plant Germplasm Coordinating Committee Meeting Notes</h3>     Beltsville, MD</strong><br /><strong>  June 9, 2010</strong><br /></div>   <br /><br />  <strong>Participants:</strong>  Ed Knipling, Lee Sommers, Peter Bretting, Tim Cupka, Jerry Arkin, AnnMarie Thro, Chet Boruff, Ed Kaleikau, Tom Burr, P.S. Benepal, Peter Tabor, Gary Pederson, Joe Colletti, and Eric Young <br /><br />  <ol>  <li>      Ed Knipling - New Feed the Future joint USDA and State Department initiative on food security <ul> <li>         Funds will go to State Department, but will fund programs through USDA/NIFA  </li><li>         US-AID will fund programs also  </li><li>         There will be a research component  </li><li>         Should be announced next week </li></ul>  <br /><br />  </li><li>     Lee Sommers - Briefed new members on history and purpose of National Germplasm Coordinating Committee   <br /><br />  </li><li>      <a href="../Docs/2010%20NPGCC%20Briefing%20Bretting.pdf"><strong>NPGS Update - Peter Bretting</strong></a> (Powerpoint) <ul> <li>         GRIN Global should be done by early 2011  </li><li>         Avocado collection in Miami is being backed up in Hilo, HI, due to disease threat, but has to be at Ft. Detrick two years in quarantine   </li><li>         Capital investment strategy study is being started on the 4 plant introduction stations by ARS, these are pilot studies prior to doing the entire ARS infrastructure  </li><li>         &gt;250,000 accessions were distributed in 2009, 25% increase from &#39;08 <ul> <li>   2/3 domestic and 1/3 foreign, 2/3 public and 1/3 private researchers </li></ul> </li><li>        ~ $3 Million new dollars in President&#39;s budget for NPGS  </li><li>         Germplasm distributed to private firms is free but most companies will pay shipping costs  </li><li>         Acquisition is being hampered now by countries that won?t allow collecting, particularly South America and Africa </li></ul>  <br /><br />  </li><li>     <a href="../Docs/NPGCC%202010%20presentation.pdf"><strong>RPIS and PGOC Update</strong></a> - Gary Pederson (Powerpoint)    <br /><br /> </li><li>      AOSCA - Chet Boruff <ul> <li>         Began in 1919 with 13 states&#39; and Canada&#39;s seed certifying agencies came together to coordinate and standardize certification  </li><li>         These standards were adopted in Federal Seed Act <ul> <li>   Programs  </li><li>   Trade stewardship  </li><li>   Quality audits  </li><li>   Carbon credit  </li><li>   Native plant certification </li></ul> </li><li>         2009 14 Million farmers in 25 countries using biotech traits, 13 Million were in developing countries  </li><li>         33 approved traits now, by 2015 will be 124 traits with 50% of new ones coming from China  </li><li>         How to handle biotech crops in certification is big challenge now <ul> <li>   Bimolecular Standards Committee is working on this now  </li><li>   Certification is important for tracking IP and royalties </li></ul></li></ul>  <br /><br />  </li><li>      ASTA - Tim Cupka <ul> <li>         NCCPB - National Council of Commercial Plant Breeders <ul> <li>   Primary goal is to increase number of traditional plant breeders  </li><li>    Working with UC Davis to identify all competencies needed for plant breeders </li></ul> </li><li>         National Plant Germplasm Coordinating Committee <ul> <li>   Goal to increase germplasm diversity in breeding programs to make greater gains  </li><li>   As PVP&#39;s expire diversity of available germplasm will increase </li></ul></li></ul>  <br /><br />  </li><li>      NRSP-6 funding <ul> <li>         Questions from NRSP-RC <ul> <li>   Why not charge fees for distribution  </li><li>   Is there a different funding model?  </li><li>   Why isn&#39;t there more characterization of germplasm </li></ul> </li><li>         ARS provides ~ 90% of NPGS funding, LGU system funds some of the 5 plant introduction station plus some in-kind support from host institutions  </li><li>         Biggest users are agricultural experiment station scientists  </li><li>         Regional stations have strong support, but NRSP-6 always has opposition  </li><li>         NPGS policy does not allow fees and even if it did the administrative costs would greatly reduce the value of fees </li></ul>  <br /><br />  </li><li>      <a href="../docs/short%20version%20GIPB%20Planning%20and%20Assessment%20Tool.pdf"><strong>NIFA - AnnMarie</strong></a>   (Powerpoint) <ul> <li>         CRIS coding for plant breeding will be refined by adding a Field of Science called Breeding  </li><li>         GIPB powerpoint and handout <ul> <li>   Developing an on line assessment and rating tool for plant breeding capacity </li></ul></li></ul>  <br /><br />  </li><li>      NIFA-AFRI - ED (<a href="../Docs/Agriculture%20and%20Food%20Research%20Initiative.pdf"><strong>Handout 1</strong></a> and <a href="../Docs/2010%20AFRI%20National%20Cereal%20Germplasm%20Phenotyping%20Program%20Area.pdf"><strong>Handout 2</strong></a>) <ul> <li>         Climate change area has RFA for CAP in cereal germplasm phenotyping </li></ul>   <br /><br /> </li><li>  Impacts <ul> <li>         Consider a marketing op-ed piece for the ESCOP marketing effort focused on public impact tied back to NPGS  </li><li>         Identify one impact from each region were NPGS played a significant role that would resonate with general public </li></ul>   <br /><br /> </li><li>  Next Meeting <ul>        <li> Next meeting will be June, 2011 in Beltsville, Eric will poll group for best date. </li></ul></li></ol> </blockquote>