Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 11
COLLABORATIVE PLANT BREEDING
FOR ORGANIC AGRICULTURAL
SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
JULIE C. DAWSON, PIERRE RIVI
È
RE,
JEAN-FRAN
Ç
OIS BERTHELLOT, FLORENT MERCIER ,
PATRICK DE KOCHKO, NATHALIE GALIC, SOPHIE PIN,
ESTELLE SERPOLAY, MATHIEU THOMAS, SIMON GIULIANO,
AND
ISABELLE GOLDRINGER
11.1 INTRODUCTION
The regulatory system in many countries, particularly in the European
Union, restricts the varieties available to farmers to those registered in an
official catalogue (National or European). In the EU, to be commercial-
ized, a variety has to be registered in the European catalogue and meet
evaluation criteria including “distinctiveness, uniformity and stability”
(DUS). Further regulations for variety registration vary by country but
usually include “value for cultivation and use” standards that measure ag-
ronomic performance and technical end-use quality in conventional sys-
tems. This has resulted in a lack of suitable varieties available to organic
farmers, since most modern varieties are developed for and tested in high-
input conventional cropping systems. Thus, many farmers using organic
