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΢����Ƶ’ global stewardship of agricultural biotechnology research and development gained even more stature recently with official recognition by the USDA’s .

The recognition went to the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, or , established by ΢����Ƶ in 2004 and hosted on the Davis campus. PIPRA’s original mission: Make patented agricultural biotechnology discoveries more available to developing nations and specialty-crop farmers.

Bennett

“Since its inception, PIPRA’s efforts have extended from addressing intellectual-property and technology-transfer issues to also include regulatory and biosafety compliance issues that are fundamental in the deployment of agricultural biotechnology crops,” said Alan Bennett, a ΢����Ƶ plant sciences professor who continues as PIPRA’s founding executive director.

This made PIPRA a perfect fit for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Biotechnology Quality Management System, which assists public and private institutions that use government-regulated plants in biotechnology research and development.

The voluntary program helps organizations identify and analyze critical control points within research-and-development and management systems, as a way to better maintain compliance with USDA regulations related to the importation, interstate movement and field release of regulated plants.

Besides PIPRA and ΢����Ƶ, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, is the only other public institution in the USDA program.

“Participation in this quality management system through PIPRA affirms ΢����Ƶ’ commitment to stewardship in biotechnology and demonstrates PIPRA’s leading role in agricultural biotechnology research and development,” Bennett said.

Twelve companies — including Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, Cal/West Seeds and Arcadia Biosciences Inc. — are already signed up.

Bennett said PIPRA and the ΢����Ƶ Biological Safety Office collaborated on ΢����Ƶ’ entry into the Biotechnology Quality Management System. He cited several people by name: Cecilia Chi-Ham and Mark Szczerba of the PIPRA staff, and Sean Barry, Malendia Maccree and Kim Rodegerdts of the Biological Safety Office.

Barry, the campus’s biological safety officer, said: “The adoption of this management system not only represents a milestone for our agricultural research programs, it also further underscores ΢����Ƶ’ leadership in the development of food resources for the burgeoning world population.”