SCC080: Plant Breeding
Statement of Issues and Justification
Project's Primary Website is at http://cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/gpb/pr/pbccmain.html (direct link can be found under LINKS)The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee will be a forum for leadership regarding issues, problems and opportunities of long-term strategic importance to the contribution of plant breeding to national goals. The committee will create the only regular opportunity to provide such leadership across all crops. The nature of plant breeding as an integrative discipline par excellence will be reflected in multidisciplinary committee membership. The past decade has brought major changes in the U.S. national plant breeding investment. Both the numbers of plant breeders, and their distribution across sectors and crops, has changed. In order for administrators and other decision makers to understand the implications of the changes and respond most effectively for the future, there is need for a clear analysis of the role of plant breeding for meeting national goals. Although recent changes in investment are the impetus for this committee, the need to articulate the role of plant breeding in meeting national goals is likely to be on going regardless of immediate circumstances.
Declining national investment in plant breeding.
Between 1990 and 1994, plant breeding investment declined by 2.5 scientist/years (SYs) in state agricultural experiment stations (SAESs) (Frey, NPBS, 1996). It is likely that the declining trend in public sector breeding started earlier (James, 1990). Private sector plant breeding increased over the 1990-94 period by 32 SYs per year (Frey, 1996). Trend data for 1990-1994 for the federal Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is not available. It is likely that the substantial increase in the private sector kept overall national investment on the increase in spite of public sector declines.
In contrast, between 1994 and 2001, national investment decreased overall. In the SAESs, it declined by 15 SYs per year, and in the private sector by 16 SYs per year. There was in increase in plant breeding investment in ARS of 6 SYs per year, but the net overall decline was 25 SYs per year (Traxler et al., 2005). This was a loss of about 8% of total national public and private plant breeding SYs in the seven years since 1994. The decline in classical plant breeding is likely underestimated because marker development and other breeding-related molecular genetics is included in the 2001 plant breeding data.
From about the mid-1980's to the present, education of plant breeders has become concentrated in a small number of universities (Guner and Wehner, 2003). Slightly over half of all plant breeding graduate students is a international student.
Earlier national panels and committees relevant to plant breeding.
a. National panels recommending public emphasis on basic research: For over two decades, prominent national panels (e.g., Rockefeller Foundation, 1982; NRC 1989, 1996, 2000, 2003; NIFA 2004) have recommended that federal funding for agricultural research concentrate on creating opportunities for basic research. These panels have recommended competitive grants held to relatively short-term accountability (3-5 years), with broad eligibility including entities not associated with comprehensive agricultural R&D programs. These recommendations were motivated by a search for ways to enhance the independence, quality, and national accountability of science for agriculture. Particularly in the earlier reports, agricultural research was seen as so accountable to near-term needs of farm clientele, that it would be unable to take advantage of advances in molecular genetics. This, it was felt, limited ability to conduct forward-looking research to retain global competitiveness of US agriculture, a goal seen as benefiting all citizens.
b. The National Plant Breeding Study (NPBS) and the Plant Breeding Task Force. The NPBS Task Force was drawn from the state, federal, and private sectors (Frey, 2000). The Task Forces objectives were to provide recommendations for the next decade for major issues facing plant breeding (Frey, 2000). They recognized new trends impacting plant breeding, including changes in the application of intellectual property rights (see, for example, Price, 1999) , and the arrival of molecular tools for plant breeding. They noted that the public sector is critical for education; availability and value-adding uses of genetic resources; integration of molecular tools; breeding for specialty crops; and development of alternative crops for preparedness when changes in the societal or natural environments impact U.S. agriculture. These are long-term activities with inherent risk, such that the private sector is unable to invest in them. Solid public research and education must come first. To address these needs, the NPBS Task Force recommended:
· A plant breeding education task force
· A task force on public-private collaboration for efficiency
Two national R&D plans:
o Genepool enrichment of U.S. crops (recommended $50 mil./yr funding)
o Breeding programs for minor crops (via the Fund for Rural America).
The NPBS was a milestone in the self-understanding of modern plant breeding. Its data are respected and widely used in research. The Task Force recommendations continue to challenge us today. For a range of reasons, however, its recommendations did not materialize. It is likely that the obstacles could have been worked through had there been a stable committee structure in place to learn from experience, explore alternative ways to achieve the most important goals, and most important of allpass on responsibilities to successors. Unlike a multi-state committee, the NPBS depended on the heroic efforts of the Task Force and lacked a way to carry on when the individual members could no longer devote the level of attention required.
Approach: Structure and continuity in support of leadership
A multi-state committee structure will provide a way to focus and sustain leadership for strategic issues in plant breeding. Such a committee will also provide visibility for plant breeding in databases of state and federal research, where presently it is largely invisible (hundreds of projects involve plant breeding but most are, rightly, titled according to the objectives rather than the methods used). Most importantly, a coordinating committee structure allows the contribution of many individuals from all sectors, and provides for continuity.
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