Breeding Horticultural Crops for Sustainable and Organic Production

Edith Lammerts Van Bueren - Louis Bolk Institute, Netherlands
email: Edith.lammertsvanbueren@wur.nl

Organic agriculture is promoting organic seed production and organic plant breeding to obtain varieties better adapted to organic farming systems. In 1999 a discussion in Europe started on how to translate the ecological values of organic farming into criteria to evaluate the appropriateness of all available plant breeding and propagation techniques for organic agriculture. Since recent years also ethical aspects are taken into account based on the concept of "naturalness" as applied in organic agriculture. Naturalness includes three complementary approaches: the non-chemical approach, the agro-ecological approach and the integrity approach. Integrity of cultivated plants refers to the inherent, characteristic nature of plants, their wholeness, completeness, their species-specific characteristics and their being in balance with the organic environment. This concept of the nature of plants can be made operational by deriving criteria from the relevant characteristics at four different levels of the nature of plants: integrity of life, plant-typic integrity, genotypic integrity and phenotypic integrity. Respecting the naturalness of plants implies that breeding techniques at whole plant or crop level are in line with the values of organic agriculture, respecting the self-reproductive ability and the reproductive barriers. In-vitro techniques and techniques at DNA level are not compatible with the integrity of plants. Recently, several novel breeding techniques are being developed, e.g. cis- or intragenesis and reverse breeding, including genetic engineering in such a way that the end product in future might not be classified as genetic modified organism (GMO) by the European GMO regulations. As the organic values are process rather than product oriented, also these novel breeding techniques do not comply with the organic values. The consequences of respecting the integrity of plants and the urgent need for improved varieties require identification and prioritization of short-term and long-term steps for the practical development of organic seed production and plant breeding.

Other talks in this session: Breeding Horticultural Crops for Sustainable and Organic Production

1. Edith Lammerts Van Bueren: Values in organic agriculture and their consequences for a process-oriented evaluation of plant breeding techniques.
2. Frederick Gmitter: Citrus Genetic Improvement and the Role of Biotechnological Approaches.
3. James Myers: Breeding Open Pollinated (OP) Broccoli Cultivars for Organic Production Systems.
4. Molly Jahn: Organic Seed Partnership: Participatory approaches to vegetable breeding for and in organic systems.
5. Rebecca Grube: Breeding for organic and sustainable systems: one size does not fit all.
6. Stephen Jones: Long-term breeding strategies for sustainable cropping systems.