Wheat, biotechnology and university breeding programs

Farm and Ranch October Among the participants in last week’s Wheat Summit III, which focused on biotechnology, were public university wheat breeders and university technology transfer directors. Jim Peterson, Oregon State University wheat breeder and Chair of the National Wheat Improvement Committee summed up their discussions in a post-summit teleconference.

Peterson: “We recognized there are some real interesting changes in the industry right now this past year with new investment in wheat and wheat research occurring. And it is time the universities had a look at themselves to look at their role in the future in the commercialization of biotechnology. And our discussions were certainly more than just GM wheat but that is truly commercialization of many biotechnologies through public-private partnerships we hope to evolve over .a period of time.”

Peterson described what the next steps are for universities.

Peterson: “The universities have a little homework to do and we have already created a couple of small working groups to go back to try and deal with some of these issues. Come back to the principles and vision of where do we want to see the university partners in the future and more effectively partner in terms of everything from material transfer agreements to hopefully setting the stage, again, for a means to promote value capture and effective management of intellectual property rights for all parties, not just the universities.”

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.