16th BioSC Lecture: The role of plant breeding towards a sustainable bioeconomy

On 15th March 2017 the 16th BioSC Lecture took place at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Dr. Léon Broers, member of the board of management of KWS Saat SE (Einbeck) and member of the German Bioeconomy Council, discussed how plant breeding can contribute to a sustainable bioeconomy and what is needed to facilitate future contribution.

Dr. Broers started with an outline of the global challenges of the coming decades. In 2050 probably nine to ten billion people will live on earth. The demand for food, energy and biomass as feedstock is already increasing while agricultural areas cannot be further expanded. At the same time extreme weather events occur more frequently, the availability of resources, e.g. fresh water, declines, soil degradation is a widespread problem and there is an increase in pest pressure on crop plants. Today almost eight million people are starving. Besides insufficient calory uptake, the insufficient supply with micronutrients, e.g. vitamins and trace elements, is a large problem. Approximately two billion people are suffering from this „hidden hunger“.

At this stage plant breeding already contributes to solutions for the global problems. Using the examples of sugar beet and cereals, Dr. Broers showed how breeding can increase yields: In 1950, one ton of sugar beets per hectare could be harvested while the expected amount for 2020 is 20 tons per hectare. This optimization takes a long time: with conventional breeding, the implementation of a gene from a wildtype beet into a sugar beet needs 20 years. Yields for wheat, rye and triticale could be increased by 5 – 15% from 2004 to 2016.

The nutritional quality of of crops can also be improved. Ergot infestation of rye could be minimized by developing variants with high pollen production. Crop plants can be fortified with micronutrients, e.g. in the case of „Golden Rice“ which contains beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A. Other important targets of plant breeding are resistance to pathogens and to abiotic stress factors. This was illustrated by examples from maize breeding.

Finally, Dr. Broers specified some requirements he considers essential to enable plant breeders to contribute to a sustainable bioeconomy in the future. Besides maintenance of genetic resources and access to these, he mentioned openness towards new breeding technologies, the protection of intellectual property and an efficient transfer of scientific results into practice.