Overview on the current organizational models for cultivar testing for Organic Agriculture over some EU countries.

Summary

Variety trials are an important way to evaluate the suitability of existing varieties (conventional, organic, landraces, heirloom, etc.) for organic farming, and are a necessary step in plant breeding and variety registration. However, it is essential that beside on-stations trials, varieties are also tested on-farm in different climatic regions as this gives more accurate and realistic variety performance assessment (Lyon et. al. 2019). Varieties of different crop species are in service to various stakeholders. Thus, their involvement may play an important role in variety trials. They could contribute, with knowledge, seed material in kind or financial support, to build cost-effective variety testing models also for crops that are not grown on a large scale and have small market share.
In the report evaluation of different organic variety trials for pre- and post-registration as well as VCU across 15 EU countries (for arable incl. forage, vegetable and fruit crops) is presented through 4 main criteria (trial setup, organizational model, dissemination of results and financial model). Through the range of organizational models of variety trials there were some that were mainly governmentally supported and involving researchers, others that have strong engagement of breeders and seed companies, or are done within seed companies, and some that are running just if project financing is available or some that are mainly established by farmers and done on voluntary basis. Organizational models of variety trials have quite complex nature and therefore, it is not possible to give a general recipe for establishing successful variety trials network. Institutes or initiatives organize trials depending on different socio-economic conditions, such as financial possibilities, economic importance of the crop in the country, chain actors’ engagements, organic sector development, existing trial infrastructure etc. In the report, SWOT analysis of different organizational model groups give better understanding of pros and cons of the different systems and show necessary infrastructure for different models. These analyses will serve as a base for development of guidelines for on-farm trials models that are low budget, with alternative financing and new infrastructures.