Deliverable No. D6.1 - Report on communication strategies,new narratives and science-based data on ecological, societal and economic benefits of organic breeding

Summary

This Report is part of LiveSeeding Task 6.1 that aims to increase awareness of organic breeding benefits for the society and environment. The background for this work is the lack in awareness among value chain actors, including consumer-citizens , and the difficulty in promoting the public goods organic breeding provides (e.g. increase in
agrobiodiversity).
We have addressed this gap by:
(i) evaluating the full range of benefits of organic breeding for two specific cases
and
(ii) defining strategies and tools to communicate them to consumer-citizens.
Among the different types of cultivars developed by organic plant breeding initiatives we have selected a case of wheat population, as example of a potential Organic Heterogeneous Material (OHM) and a case of open pollinated beetroot cultivar as an example of a potential Organic Variety (OV).
Regarding the evaluation activity, this report includes:
(iii) the methodology used to evaluate the benefits and costs of organic breeding,
(iv) the result of the participatory evaluation for each of the two case studies, and
(v) the discussion of the results against the scientific literature related to the focus cultivar types.
Regarding the communication strategy activity, this report includes:
(i) a review of consumer motivations,
(ii) a summary of arguments used to promote organic breeding,
(iii) their matching with consumer perception and the benefits identified in the two case studies,
(iv) a reflection on the main challenges encountered in communicating the added value of organic breeding and
(v) a plan for a communication strategy to be tested by LiveSeeding consortium.