Mon 25 Sep 2023

End point royalties and the future of plant breeding

Breeding a new crop variety can take 8-12 years with hundreds of glasshouse and paddock trials to select the strongest performing lines, then quality evaluation, seed bulk up and commercialisation.

WORDS By Dr Sam Nelson - Policy Manager, Technical

Growers are acutely aware of the opportunity that can come from new varieties, and 14 per cent of respondents in GrainGrowers recent Annual Policy Survey indicated that plant varieties had the greatest impact on their business. A strength of Australia’s crop breeding system has been the strong focus on developing varieties that meet grower needs, and this has been driven by the End Point Royalty (EPR) system.

Over the last 25 years with EPRs in place there has been massive improvement in variety yields across and a range of crops, with a significant improvement in the rate of yield increase of varieties developed under private breeding programs. Australia’s plant breeding system allows growers to gain access to improved genetics quicker than the public breeding system, and resistance is being introduced that allows these varieties to match the evolution of rusts and other pathogens

Topic

Policy & Research / Research, development & extension

Under the EPR system, the Australian plant breeding sector has remained strong at a time when other countries have seen a decline in plant breeding efforts. A survey of 278 public sector plant breeding programs in the U.S. found that many were short on funding, loosing staff due to retirement and lacked succession plans. The lack of EPR system in other countries has driven investment towards ‘hybrid production’ systems which results in growers paying for seed upfront to pay for breeding programs.

The future of plant breeding in Australia

Australia’s plant breeding programs are incorporating a range of innovations including new agronomic traits (e.g. 100 day wheats, long coleoptile, awnless wheats), new market related traits (e.g. innovative wheats and soft wheats) as well as adoption of new breeding technologies.

The long lead times and the systematic nature of breeding programs means breeders have limited business flexibility to deal with financial shocks without disrupting their ‘breeding pipeline’. However, the system is coming under pressure from non-compliance with End Point Royalties and some breeders are finding it difficult to maintain and re-invest in their business.

A number of breeding companies are now looking at a range of ways to address this issue. Increased compliance activities to address poor reporting in harvest declarations is being considered in some instances.

Concerns have been raised that breeders will reduce their investment in research and development and may reduce breeding efforts for regions where there is under payment and poor reporting. It is important that declarations are properly completed, and growers and traders follow the correct processes.

Breeders also have a role to play in helping answering grower questions on the system, and EPR rates and harvest declarations. More information is available from the Variety Central website.

End point royalties and the future of plant breeding

Topic

The future of plant breeding in Australia

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