Shaping the future of organic breeding & farming

With changing climatic conditions and a rapidly growing world population estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050, mankind faces the serious challenge of increasing food production by at least 70 %1. The vision of BRESOV is to tackle this challenge by exploring the genetic diversity of three of the economically most significant vegetable crops (broccoli, snap bean and tomato) and to improve the competitiveness of these three crops in an organic and sustainable environment. The consortium’s overall aim is to increase the plants’ tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses and adapt the varieties to the specific requirements of organic and low-input production processes.

What BRESOV is about   BRESOV Position Paper


  1. according to the World Resources Institute, http://www.wri.org 

Follow Us

Newsletter


Do you want to stay up to date about our project activities?

Subscribe

Why BRESOV is important

Photo of Prof. Ferdinando Branca
Prof. Ferdinando Branca
University of Catania

The increasing world population and the growing demand for a more sustainable agriculture in a climate and environmental change scenario will be the challenge of the next decades. Against this backdrop, BRESOV intends to support organic production by pre-breeding and breeding activities in order to increase the availability of organic seeds and varieties for organic vegetable production. BRESOV involves a consortium of partners from different countries in Europe, Africa and Asia and brings together researchers, private breeders, seed companies, farmers and interested groups from civil society organisations along the whole agronomic value chain. The research will take advantage from various agro-climatic zones involved and from the multi-actor approach which will be developed by the cooperation among partners with different skills. BRESOV aims to implement the resilience, efficiency and sustainability of organic vegetable production not only by exploitation the wide agrobiodiversity, which is until now not well utilised for broccoli, snap beans and tomato, but also to adapt them to the innovative organic protocols supported by the use of bio-stimulants and natural bioactive compounds.

Meet the BRESOV team
Photo of Dr Joelle Herforth-Rahmé
Dr Joelle Herforth-Rahmé
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture

In Switzerland, organic vegetables hold the second place for the largest share of the total market. With the continuous growth of the organic agricultural lands and the organic market, it is important to enlarge the offer of organic varieties with a better performance (resistance/tolerance and productivity) which also meet the market’s demand. BRESOV spreads from the research of interesting traits in genebanks to the growing of alternative varieties on-farm on three important vegetable crops. The research is spread within Europe and beyond, which means a diversity of regional conditions, of needs and agricultural practices that will be investigated and a broad outreach to the agricultural stakeholders and consumers.

Meet the BRESOV team
Photo of Dr Peter Glen Walley
Dr Peter Glen Walley
University of Liverpool

The BRESOV project will provide a firm base for the organic breeding sector. The use of state-of-the-art high throughput genotyping methodologies to genetically characterise diverse germplasm will greatly enhance the capture of beneficial genetic variation for organic crop improvement. By using a multi-actor approach, with the inclusion of public and private researchers, farmer associations and seed companies, new innovative approaches can be translated directly to the organic sector. This work will interlink and join up other EU projects such as LIVESEED and ECOBREED; together we hope to build a stronger, more competitive, sustainable future for all organic growers.

Meet the BRESOV team
Photo of Dr Xiaoguang Sheng
Dr Xiaoguang Sheng
Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences

The BRESOV implementation results will provide us with healthy, delicious and safe vegetables. On the other hand, this project will increase the exchange and understanding of Chinese and European researchers and jointly promote the development of the organic vegetable industry.

Meet the BRESOV team
Photo of Prof. Jaime Prohens
Prof. Jaime Prohens
Universitat Politècnica de València

There is an urgent need of varieties well adapted to organic cultivation in Europe. Up to now most plant materials used correspond to standard commercial varieties selected for high input conventional agriculture. In addition, there is a lack of high quality organic seed. The project will address these issues and as a result new varieties, developed using the treasure trove of local genetic resources and their wild ancestors, with dramatic improvements in adaptation to organic conditions will be developed for the three strategic vegetable crops (beans, brassicas, and tomato) included in the project.

Meet the BRESOV team

Partners

University of Catania logo
Euroseeds logo
University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro logo
Crop Research Institute logo
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture logo
Polytechnic University of Marche logo
Vegenov logo
University of Liverpool logo
Universitat Politècnica de València logo
Vegetable Research and Development Station Bacau logo
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria logo
Beijing Vegetable Research Center logo
Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences logo
University of Tunis El Manar logo
Regional Agrifood Research and Development Service logo
ProSpecieRara logo
ITAKA SRL logo
National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment logo
Chungnam National University logo
Terre d’Essais logo
European Research and Project Office GmbH logo