Cereals 2010: Plant breeders call for new approach to R&D funding

“Our expanding knowledge of plant genetics certainly opens up major new opportunities to develop crops with increased yields. But the investment needed to exploit this rapidly advancing knowledge base remains greater than commercial plant breeders can manage alone,” said BSPB chairman Nigel Moore.

The warning comes as BSPB publishes the findings of a major economic impact study, which suggests the annual contribution of plant breeding exceeds £1 billion in additional value within the UK farming and food supply chain, in addition to safeguarding an additional £1.2 billion of economic activity in the UK each year.

The study, which was carried out by independent economists from the DTZ life science group, focused on wheat, barley and maize. It found that over 90 per cent of the increase in national average cereal yields over the past 25 years could be attributed to innovation in plant breeding.

According to DTZ economist Donald Webb, the gross value to wheat growers of yield increases, since 1982, is between £373 and £445 million per annum at 2010 prices.

Nor are the benefits of plant breeding confined to the arable sector. Through the introduction of new forage maize varieties plant breeders have supported provision of better animal feed worth £80 per cow per annum, attributable to higher ration intake, lower production costs and higher milk yields and quality, said Mr Webb.

However, BSPB’s Dr Thomas Jolliffe warned that the policy response to increasing global demand for food had been largely piecemeal. There was an urgent need to develop crop-specific targets for sustainable output to 2030. Commercial or ‘industrial’ plant breeding provided the only route to market for genetic improvements, he said.

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