Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

• PBCC organized a symposium entitled ‘Unlocking Plant Genetic Diversity for Food and Nutritional Security’ at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Feb. 13, Washington, DC. A written summary was shared with PBCC and NAPB membership, as well as highlighted on the NAPB website. Travel of Pat Byrne to the AAAS meeting was partially supported by NAPB.

• PBCC was granted liaison status on the National Plant Germplasm Coordinating Committee (NPGCC). Pat Byrne represented PBCC at the NPGCC annual meeting, June 14, 2016 in Fort Collins, CO. A written summary was shared with PBCC membership. The meeting registration fee was paid for by NAPB.

• Bill Tracy, lead for the PBCC intellectual property subcommittee, in collaboration with other key stakeholders (e.g., Seeds & Breeds) held an IPR for Public Plant Breeding Summit from August 13 – 15, 2016 in Raleigh, NC. The main goal of the summit was to develop mechanisms that facilitate the commercialization and utilization of publicly developed germplasm in both public and private breeding programs, while providing an income stream from finished varieties to help fund public cultivar development. Often the public breeding sector collaborates with the private sector to commercialize public cultivars, and considerations must be made to facilitate this while ensuring that farmers and the public benefit from public investment in plant breeding. The summit had approximately 50 attendees.

• Internship white paper, including a “best practice protocol” was developed by Stephen Baenziger, Mike Havey, and Thomas Lubberstedt – in interaction with PBCC and NAPB, and posted on the NAPB website.

• Shared with PBCC representatives a report from the National Genetic Resources Advisory Council (NGRAC) for the National Genetic Resources Program (NGRP) that was in response to a specific recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology in the 21st Century (AC21). The report was also discussed further by Chair of the NGRAC, Manjit Misra, at the PBCC meeting of State Representatives on August 16, 2016, allowing comments to be directly communicated.

• Shared with PBCC representatives a report titled “Examination of Plant Breeding at U.S. Academic Institutions and Private Companies in 2015” by the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI). This report was requested by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and builds on the previous work of Dr. Kenneth Frey and others. It is an examination of (1) the current state of plant breeding in the public and private sectors and (2) the educational pipeline for plant breeding. Weaknesses and flaws of the report identified by PBCC State Representatives were anonymously shared with Ann Marie Thro (NIFA rep), which were then communicated to Emily Sylak of the STPI staff. Efforts need to be taken by PBCC in the future to help fill in the existing information gaps.