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Understanding the National Organic Program Seed Rule and Sourcing Organic Seed

The Organic Seed Alliance and eOrganic will host a webinar on June 6, 2014, at 11AM Eastern Time, 10AM Central, 9AM Mountain, 8AM Pacific Time. The webinar, designed for organic certifiers, inspectors, and operations, is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required.

Register now at http://www.extension.org/pages/70561

About the Webinar

The webinar will cover the availability of organic seed, as well as the National Organic Program's 2013 guidance that aimed to clarify the organic seed regulatory requirement. Presenters will share their perspectives on challenges in enforcing this requirement, and recommendations for encouraging increased sourcing of organic seed. Finally, participants will be introduced to tools and resources that support organic seed sourcing and production. This webinar is supported by a contract from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s National Organic Program.

About the Presenters

Kristina Hubbard is the director of advocacy and communications for Organic Seed Alliance (OSA), a national organization that delivers research, education, and advocacy that advances the ethical development and stewardship of seed. Her work includes the promotion of policies that expand organic seed systems, and improve the availability, quality, and integrity of organic seed. She's a contributing author to OSA's State of Organic Seed report (2011).

Emily Brown Rosen has been at USDA’s National Organic Program in the Standards Division since April 2010, as an agricultural marketing specialist, working on regulations and guidance for organic producers. She has an M.S. from Rutgers University in horticulture, and over 20 years of experience in the organic sector, including as policy director/technical support for Pennsylvania Certified Organic, the Organic Materials Review Institute, and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of NJ.

Zea Sonnabend is an organic farm inspector and materials policy advisor for California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and serves on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). She helped write the first certification handbook and materials list for organic farming in California, is a founder of the Organic Materials Review Institute, and has worked for the USDA and NOSB as a contractor to develop the National List. She is a lifetime member of the Seed Savers Exchange, board member of Organic Seed Alliance, and has taught classes in seed saving at the UC Davis Student Farm and at the UCSC Farm and Garden since 1986. She has an M.S. in Plant Breeding from Cornell University.

Cullen Carns-Hilliker is a Certification Specialist at the Midwest Organic Services Association.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet

Java needs to be installed and working on your computer to join the webinar and the webinar. If you have concerns, please test your Java at http://java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp prior to joining the webinar. If you are running Mac OS X 10.5 with Safari, please be sure to test your Java. If it isn't working, please try Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com) or Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome).  The webinar program will require you to download software before connecting you to the webinar, so if you don't have administrative rights on your computer, you may not be able to do this, although you can listen in by phone. If you'd like to test your connection to gotowebinar in advance, go here.



http://www.extension.org/pages/70561

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This website is supported in part by New Technologies for Ag Extension (funding opportunity no. USDA-NIFA-OP-010186), grant no. 2023-41595-41325 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Extension Foundation. For more information, please visit extension.org. You can view the terms of use at extension.org/about/terms.

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