United States
May, 2009

Source: Eurofins STA Today, May 2009
Author: Linda Barbosa
Reprinted with permission of the author

For many years there have been two seed testing organizations in the United States, the Association of Official Seed Analysts (AOSA) and the Society of Commercial Seed Technologists (SCST). The AOSA is composed of seed analysts from government and university labs and the SCST is composed of analysts from private seed companies and private testing labs. Up until recently the AOSA was the only one authorized to accept new seed testing methods.

There is now a proposal for consolidating the AOSA and the SCST into one seed testing organization.

The following is a short version of the proposal prepared by the Consolidation Task Force lead by Loren Wiesner, Retired Research Leader, ARS-USDA

Vision: To serve agriculture in the area of seed testing

Mission: To serve the seed industry by maintaining and encouraging the highest professional standards and proficiency among its members and promoting uniform seed testing standards through accreditation, research and method development and maintaining and updating the Rules for Seed Testing.

The Association will achieve this mission by:

• Educating and accrediting seed technologists
• Develop standardized seed testing methods and maintaining them in the Rules for Testing Seed
• Producing and distributing educational materials for seed technologists
• Provide a forum for the  exchange of ideas between seed technologists, researchers and the greater seed industry

Benefits to AOSA and SCST Members:

• Provides one organization  that represents all seed technologists and seed researchers
• Indicates solidarity to the seed industry, North America and our international colleagues
• Reduce duplication in association administration, leadership committee work and is a more efficient use of financial resources
• Enhances the ability to determine seed research needs and conduct research to improve seed testing evaluations through improved communications
• Better able to develop standardized seed testing methods

Benefits to the Seed Industry

• Streamline communications when the industry needs to communicate concerning their seed testing needs
• Provide the seed industry with standardized uniform seed evaluation methods
• Continued high quality research that meets their seed evaluation needs
• Allow for one accreditation system for all of the seed technologists
• A standardized and uniform set of Rules for use in seed quality assessment, seed labeling, seed law enforcement and certification of seed will be developed by one organization

Source: Eurofins STA Today, May 2009

Website: http://www.seedquest.com/id/s/STALabs.htm

Published: May 15, 2009