Organic plant breeding and seed production: ecological and ethical aspects - Organic Agriculture: A Global Perspective - page 123

Chapter 5
Organic plant breeding and seed production:
ecological and ethical aspects
Edith T. Lammerts van Bueren* and Henk Verhoog, Louis Bolk Institute, The Netherlands
*Dr Edith Lammerts van Bueren, Louis Bolk Institute, Hoofdstraat 24, Driebergen 3972 LA, The Netherlands.
Tel: [phone], Fax: [phone], Email: [e-mail]
Introduction
Like all farmers, organic farmers look for the best varieties for their farm conditions. The pool
of varieties to choose from consists, in many cases, of 'conventional' varieties, bred for conven-
tional agricultural systems in which high levels of artificial fertilisers and agrochemicals are
widely used to control or overrule external factors. For such farming systems, conventional
plant breeding can aim at optimising yield at high input. As organic farmers refrain from such
chemical inputs, it seems logical that requirements for varieties suitable for organic farming
systems should be based on optimising yield at lower input and stabilising yields under less
controllable conditions. Most variety trials, though, show that the organic sector can profit
from the progress in plant breeding and that modern varieties also fulfil some of the impor-
tant needs of organic farmers (Stöppler et al . 1989). Not only has the yield potential of varieties
increased but also the level of disease resistances has improved in some crops, such as tomato
(Williams and St Clair 1993).
That many organic farmers in developed countries use modern varieties does not imply
that those varieties are the best ones for organic agriculture. Given that attention is often
focused on developing other agronomic areas of their farming systems, organic farmers have
long accepted their dependence on conventional breeding. However, now more attention is
being paid to the question of how to develop better-adapted varieties for organic farming
systems. This question is even more urgent since genetic engineering has become important in
conventional plant breeding and being dependent on conventional breeding would therefore
no longer be an option. The organic sector realised that it is not only concerned about the
variety traits as such but also about how varieties are bred and propagated, and thus whether
breeding and propagation methods comply with both the ecological and ethical principles in
organic agriculture (Bullard et al . 1994).
Such principles applied in the organic sector can be ref lected in the concept of 'natural-
ness', which encompasses three approaches:
1 the non-chemical approach;
2 the agroecological approach; and
3 the ethical approach in which the integrity of life is taken into account (Verhoog et al .
2003).
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