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LIVESEED boosting organic seed and plant breeding across Europe

Messmer, Monika; Schäfer, Freya; Raaijmakers, Maaike; Rey, Frédéric; Chable, Véronique; Nuijten, Edwin; Lammerts van Bueren, Edith; Mendes-Moreira, Pedro; Bocci, Riccardo; Drexler, Dora; Padel, Susanne; Zanoli, Raffaele; Fuss, Alexandra and Moeskops, Bram (2018) LIVESEED boosting organic seed and plant breeding across Europe. In: Proceedings of the DIVERSIFOOD Congress 2018, "Cultivating Diversity and Food Quality", 12-12 December 2018, Rennes, France, p. 95.

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Summary

The European project LIVESEED (www.liveseed.eu) is based on the concept that cultivars adapted to organic systems are key for realizing the full potential of organic agriculture in Europe. LIVESEED will help to establish a level playing field in the organic seed market across Europe, improve the competitiveness of the organic seed and breeding sector, and encourage greater use of organic seeds by farmers. LIVESEED will improve guidelines for cultivar testing and strategies for ensuring seed health. It will develop innovative breeding approaches suited to organic farming. Finally, it will investigate socio-economic aspects relating to the use and production of organic seed and their interaction with relevant (EU) regulations. The LIVESEED project (2017 – 2021) is coordinated by IFOAM EU with FiBL for scientific coordination and consists of 35 partners and 14 third linked parties from 18 European countries. LIVESEED received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727230 and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 17.00090.
By connecting several networks LIVESEED will combine co construction and exchange of knowledge integrating biological, technical, legal, organisational, financial and political aspects as well as market development to facilitate fast upscaling and outreach of various tailor made socio-technical, evidence based, innovation tracks. LIVESEED will generate (i) a tool box of measures and interventions to match production and demand of organic seed, (ii) validated options for competent authorities to reduce the number of derogation for untreated conventional seed, (iii) develop technical solutions for national databases of organic seed including an interface to a European wide router database to increase the transparency on the availability of organic seed, (iv) analyse in depth formal and informal seed chains, (v) explore various business models including checklists for setting up new multiplication and breeding initiatives, (vi) produce technical factsheet on the best practice guidelines for seed production for major crops including vegetative plant propagation material, and (vii) an develop organic seed quality strategy including quality control of farm saved seeds and efficiency of seed exchange networks.
With respect to organic plant breeding LIVESEED will provide new concepts for designing and implementing decentralized breeding initiatives for organic and low-input agriculture through (i) establishing networks across Europe (e.g. for apple, brassica vegetables) and fostering public-private partnerships, (ii) combining farmer, value chain or community based system breeding with functional trait-based and molecular breeding approaches, (iii) identifying trade-offs between resilience traits and sensory and nutritional quality, (iv) developing breeding schemes for heterogeneous cultivars and species mixtures, and (v) elaborating different financing models.
Considering the plant as a mega organism, including the above and below ground associated microorganism, has the potential to evoke a paradigm shift in plant breeding, and will be elucidated in case studies.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Poster
Keywords:organic seed, organic breeding, seed health, networks, organic regulation, seed supply chain, plant breeding, LIVESEED, FiBL20064
Subjects: Crop husbandry > Breeding, genetics and propagation
Research affiliation: Netherlands > Louis Bolk Institute
Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Crops > Seeds and breeding > Plant breeding
Germany > FiBL Germany - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture
France > INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
France > ITAB - Institut Technique en Agriculture Biologique
Hungary > Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture
International Organizations > International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements IFOAM > IFOAM EU Group
Italy > Univ. Politecnica delle Marche (prev. Univ. Ancona)
Portugal
UK > Organic Research Centre (ORC)
Netherlands > Other organizations
Related Links:https://www.fibl.org/en/projectdatabase/projectitem/project/1298.html
Deposited By: Messmer, Dr. Monika
ID Code:34841
Deposited On:04 Mar 2019 17:42
Last Modified:15 Dec 2020 09:57
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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