Innovation in Plant Breeding for a Sustainable Supply of High‐Quality Plant Raw Materials for the Food Industry

• Published in: Megatrends in Food and Agriculture pp. 53 - 86
• Main Authors: Dubois, Michel J.F., Pétiard, Vincent
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 17.11.2017; Wiley
• Subjects: agricultural production; Biotechnology; cultivated species; Environment and Society; Environmental Sciences; Food and Nutrition; Genetics; Global Changes; Humanities and Social Sciences; industrial food chain; Life Sciences; Methods and statistics; plant breeding; Plants genetics; raw material storage; research‐and‐development investment; seed industry; Plant breeding and biotechnologies; Food production scenarios; Agri food industry
• ISBN: 1119391148; 9781119391142
• DOI: 10.1002/9781119391173.ch3

This chapter reviews the relationship between seed industry, farmers, and the actors of the food chain by proposing some examples of different species that can represent various business models. It compares the research‐and‐development (R&D) investment of the seed industry to the value and area of production. The chapter provides an exhaustive overview about available techniques and strategies in plant breeding. It discusses how the food chain operates from seeds to consumers. In the context of a growing diversification of agricultural production, it is necessary to anticipate a need for traceability, which will concern the cultivated species, cultivars, the raw material storage, and transformations throughout the industrial food chain. The chapter presents the analysis of megatrends after providing the methodology of gathering data about the main cultivated species, their areas, and their production, analysis of investment in seed R&D, and analysis of deviations/distortions between R&D investments and production volumes and values.