Traditional breeding: limitations

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Traditional breedinglimitations

• Bert Visser
• Copenhagen, 13 december 2005

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Scope of this presentation

• technological limitations
• species barriers
• timelines
• breeding of clonally propagated and perennial
  crops
• specific traits
• institutional limitations
• seed regulatory systems
• infrastructure costs of technologies
• market demands
• access to technologies
• concentration in breeding sector

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Technological limitations
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Species barriers

• no denial of species barriers, but modern
  technologies
• allow wider, interspecies crosses and bridge
  crossings
• soften consequences of introgression of unadapted
  germplasm/wild relatives
• most of useful traits to be found in (wild)
  relatives
• more than in unrelated species
• potential usefulness not well exhausted and not
  always predictable
• traditional breeding logical choice
  (serendipity!)

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Timelines

• traditional breeding time consuming
• many new varieties 10 years in pipeline, but
• two-hemisphere programmes decrease breeding
  periods
• marker-assisted breeding/selection decreases
  breeding periods
• however, wide crosses add to lead time
• the GMO practice may show shorter breeding but
  long approval trajectories
• less experience with risks
• risks real (peanut gene in soy bean)

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Clonally propagated crops

• breeding clonally propagated crops often complex
• banana, potato, cassava (near-sterility)
• fruit trees
• extension of breeding period
• breeding often involves ploidy reduction
• however, tissue culture contributes to rapid
  multiplication of final breeding materials
• still, GM technology needs products of
  traditional breeding to build on and add
  individual traits to

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Specific traits

• too few within-species resistances against
  viruses and insects
• few GM-successes largely in this terrain (Bt and
  virus resistance genes)
• most relevant potential contribution of GM
  technology (if widely licensed! no signs now!)
• for other traits traditional breeding
  out-competes GM technology
• rin mutation to delay tomato fruit ripening
• banana mutants not initiating ethylene synthesis

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Institutional limitations
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Seed regulatory systems

• professional sector varieties promoted
• prohibition of marketing farmers seeds
• limitations in obtaining micro credits
• farmers varieties disregarded
• combining professional and local germplasm
  (Salazar et al., 2006)
• adapting to local circumstances
• GM varieties further threat to farmers
  contributions
• use of protected varieties prohibited

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Infrastructure costs of technologies

• modern technologies costly
• require specialist human expertise and facilities
• without reach of many LDCs
• North-South collaboration or PPPs required
• CBD not very conducive, International Treaty
  PGRFA not yet operational, framework for
  effective international collaboration not in
  place
• infrastructure costs and international legal
  framework even larger barrier for GM technology
• many LDCs lack regulatory frameworks

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Market demands

• markets demand uniformity and continuous supply
  of products
• globalization results in 30 global super crops
• other crops increasingly marginalized
• thus, breeding for uniformity in limited set of
  crops
• available diversity increasingly underexploited
• GM technology enforces this trend
• ten years resulted in varieties for only four
  crops and two traits by 5-6 companies

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Technology access

• many modern technologies protected
• process patents, e.g. AFLP, statistics software
• increasing number of crop varieties is hybrids
• hybrids boost RD but also reduce number of
  breeding companies
• hybrids not attractive as parental germplasm in
  targeted breeding programmes (still used in
  farmer-breeding)
• GM technology even more protected
• marketing and growing of seeds only under license
  of developer
• trait patents more damaging than process patents

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Private sector concentration

• technology demands enhanced concentration in
  breeding sector
• technology development and concentration in
  sector may result in less breeders and decreased
  pool of elite germplasm
• no evidence yet
• more diversity created in smaller number of crops
• economics govern exploitation of genetic
  diversity
• insufficient complementarity offered by public
  sector

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Conclusions (1)

• technological limitations are specific for
  traditional breeding, but are increasingly
  compensated by modern (non-GM) technology
• some limitations are difficult to address
  effectively, but concern limited number of crops
  and traits
• clonally propagated crops and single resistance
  genes

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Conclusions (2)

• institutional limitations hamper exploitation of
  genetic diversity at inter- and intra-specific
  levels, but have an even increased impact on use
  of GM technology
• current trends enforce socio-economic
  inequalities
• GM technology can not survive without traditional
  breeding to build on, traditional breeding will
  survive without GM technology
• GM debate of limited practical relevance