Potential, Challenges, and Threats for the Application of New Breeding Techniques by the Private Plant Breeding Sector in the EU

Abstract

Reconciling sustainability with agricultural productivity in the face of climate change relies strongly on the development of resilient, high-yielding crops of superior nutritional value that can be grown more resource efficiently. Therefore, innovation in plant breeding has gained unprecedented importance. Plant breeding depends upon genetic variability within crops and their relatives as a basis for developing new plant varieties with improved characteristics. Plant breeders are continuously integrating the latest methods in plant biology and genetics into their breeding toolbox to more efficiently use existing diversity but also to induce new genetic variation. Over the past years, ever more precise and efficient plant breeding methods have been developed. This plant breeding innovation leap is based on an in-depth understanding of plant genomes and refinement of breeding methods, enabling more efficient, more precise and faster progress in achieving the desired breeding goals. Consequently, these plant breeding innovations are rapidly being developed and utilized internationally and across the seed sector, public and private research, plant species and markets. The results of a survey among 62 private plant breeding companies conducted by Euroseeds and presented in this publication confirm the enormous interest of companies in using new breeding techniques (NBTs) for a wide range of crop species and traits and the negative impact of the current regulatory situation in the EU on companies' decisions for investments in NBT-related R&D activities for the EU market and beyond.

Genome Editing in Crop Plant Research—Alignment of Expectations and Current Developments

“…Several of these aims would further fit within the economic interest, especially of the biotechnology and breeding sectors in the expansion and facilitation of product development based on NGT applications, which have been previously documented [153]. In our study, identified aims and expectations generally tend to derive from the socio-political field and are only loosely connected with economic interests.…”

Breeding for Nutritional and Organoleptic Quality in Vegetable Crops: The Case of Tomato and Cauliflower

“…The novelty and value of genomic editing in applied breeding has largely recognized. Nevertheless, before such technology could be fully implemented and largely produce practical results, it will be important that a science-based regulatory frame be applied consistently worldwide [147][148][149][150][151].…”

Enabling Genome Editing for Enhanced Agricultural Sustainability

“…In a survey of plant breeding companies in the EU, this was shown to be the case irrespective of the size of the enterprise, with larger developers relocating research and development programs to jurisdictions with more enabling regulatory environments. This refocus to non-EU markets may not be feasible for SMEs with markets predominantly in the EU, who reported discontinuing, modifying or postponing research and development programs that involved the use of genome editing tools ( Jorasch, 2020 ). These issues appear to extend to less politicised jurisdictions where some regulatory clarity has been provided.…”

“…The scientific literature strongly emphasises the features of ease and speed for trait and crop improvement using genome editing, with estimates for halving the development process, e.g., from 8 to 10 years with conventional tools, 8–12 years if transgenic tools are also used, and 4–6 years with the use of genome editing ( Chen et al, 2019 ). Genome editing tools are expected to be widely implemented in plant breeding and to complement existing breeding processes ( Jorasch, 2020 ; Gao, 2021 ).…”