Germany
October 30, 2007Quelle:
SAATEN-UNION
The achievements of classical
cereal breeding by private breeding companies have shown a
remarkable success during the last decades. But the public
recognition and the even the respect at the farmers’ level have
been limited.
While the results of breeding via international foundations was
highly recognised as the „Green Revolution“, „private” breeding
had an equally high impact in developed countries where high
yields and improved quality joined by better resistance against
harmful pests and diseases were accomplished in their varieties.
But private breeding companies have to collect royalties to
finance these achievements. Even in there home markets of
Western Europe all private cereal breeders are suffering due to
the increasing level of FSS.
EU legislation confirmed royalty on FSS
Although in Northern Europe, UK and France the implementation of
the EU-regulation regarding royalty on FSS has been successful,
breeders are suffering from the increase of FSS, because the
royalty level for FSS is only about 50 % of the royalty for
certified seed. The collection of royalty on FSS in Central
Europe is still not satisfying and in Southern or Eastern Europe
the regulation’s implementation is still missing. In addition to
this we have levels of FSS in these countries of up to 90 %.
Costs for breeding are increasing
To succeed with top-level new varieties private breeders have to
use the latest bio-technologies like dihaploids, cell and tissue
culture, molecular markers, etc. These techniques are increasing
the cost for breeding every year. These circumstances have
caused a dramatic change in the business structure of private
cereal breeding during the last decade. Due to the low
profitability of classical cereal breeding, big multinationals
like Monsanto sold their cereal breeding activities, while other
multinational breeding companies like Advanta were cut into
pieces and sold as well. Several smaller breeding companies just
disappeared and even leading cereal breeders had to cut their
staff and tried to reduce their costs.
New top-varieties only with royalty for FSS
As one reaction SAATEN-UNION will deliver new top cereal
varieties to countries with a very high level of FSS, only if a
payment of royalty on FSS will be assured by distributors and
farmers through a contract. The agreement would also allow free
access of an authorized person to the concerned field of these
farms, provision of their field maps and would include a
significant penalty for any sales of harvested grain to other
farms for seeding purposes. To maximize the yields of purchased
top-varieties, even with FSS, new local SAATEN-UNION advisers
will support these farms in the future giving advice in
production technology not only for cereals but in the management
of the whole crop rotation of the farm including oil-seed-rape,
maize or pulses. Hopefully this approach will help return the
cost of increasingly expensive breeding programs. Otherwise the
concentration of private cereal breeding enterprises will
continue or such companies may be replaced by less efficient
public breeding programmes as it is the case in North America
and elsewhere.
Dr. Ernst Loop, Head of International Department |
|
