Shaping the future of organic breeding & farming

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.