Mentor moment

Passion for plants

INTERVIEW BY RITA WEERDENBURG

PEGGY WALSH CRAIG is well known in the You are well known by industry industry — especially within the nursery sector friends and colleagues as being a true for her many contributions to the ornamental plant person. What led you to choose sector as the Managing Director of the Canadian a career in horticulture and how did Ornamental Plant Foundation (COPF), a position your choices lead you to COPF? she held for 21 years from 1990 to her retirement I have always been an environmental activist in 2011. and after a summer working at a wholesale

COPF was founded in 1964 to compensate nursery, I saw horticulture aligning with doing for Canada’s lack of Plant Breeders’ Rights good things for the planet. After completing regulations; however, even after the introduction the University of Guelph’s diploma program, I of PBR in the early 1990s under Peggy’s worked at Sheridan Nurseries and then Braun guidance, COPF continued its vital role as an Nurseries. I also served on a horticulture agency charged with the orderly collection therapy project and in plant records at and redistribution of royalties on new plant introductions. PEGGY WALSH CRAIG Royal Botanical Gardens, but it was while interviewing Tony Huber for a Horticulture

The management of intellectual property Review article that I became aware of and rights on plants is exceptionally complex, and over the years Peggy applied for the position of Managing Director of COPF. became Canada’s go-to person to provide expert advice to the ornamental sector in the management of intricate IP issues. She Regular readers of LT will be aware that you have represented Canada at the international level, meeting with IP received two prestigious awards from the International managers of major breeding companies around the world and at Plant Propagator’s Society. What inspired your CIOPORA, the international agency representing plant breeders’ involvement with that organization? rights on behalf of the ornamental sector. You could say that from my first IPPS meeting, I felt I’d found my What do you consider to be your major contributions morning to late night. The organization’s motto is: “To seek and to to the industry as Managing Director of COPF? share,” and even the most successful nursery people openly share Throughout my career I worked with many far-sighted and their knowledge with industry newbies at the annual conference. dedicated board volunteers who appreciated getting to know the Eventually, I served on the board, helped organize a conference differences between the floriculture and nursery sectors, who in Ontario and in 2017, took a position as Executive Secretary of were both represented in COPF. It was challenging to balance the the IPPS-Eastern Region Foundation. The Foundation aims to grow needs of growers seeking liberal access to new varieties for low future horticulturists through small research grants, scholarships royalties with breeders wanting to limit access and receive the and internships. highest royalties possible for their new plants. And I like to think I helped bridge those differences in many instances. How have you fulfilled your quest to be an

Also, with the board’s guidance and cooperation, all grower environmental activist? and breeder agreements were rewritten to work with the Locally in North Bay, Ontario, I advocate on stormwater Plant Breeders’ Rights Act passed in the early 1990s. We also management issues, water quality and active transportation. In implemented a propagation monitoring program which greatly 2015, I started working with the local conservation authority, to set improved compliance among growers and raised confidence up a shoreline restoration program called Restore Your Shore. LT with foreign and domestic breeders releasing new plants in the Canadian marketplace. With these improvements, we were able to tribe. Members of IPPS talk passionately about plants from early increase royalties collected four times higher than previous levels. If you have a mentor to recommend, or a question to suggest, please write to editor@landscapetrades.com.

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