- Advances in Agriculture
Survival of the Best: The Past, Present and Future of Plant Breeding
Selective breeding is nothing new; mankind has been doing it for thousands of years. Today, plant breeding is powered by the most advanced understanding of genetics and biological tools in human history – and scientists still have a few more tricks up their sleeves.
How Selective Breeding Changed the Food We Eat
The carrot on your plate might seem like the most simple thing in the world – a hardy root that has nourished humans, from kings to peasants, for generations. But as humble as it seems, the common carrot – long, orange and crunchy – is actually just one result of a genetic engineering project that has been going on for the last ten thousand years. In the wild, carrots are small, pale and have thin, forked roots with a strong flavor. Only centuries of selective breeding for desirable traits has given us the carrot we see today.
The fact is, a huge amount of the fruit and vegetables we take for granted never looked that way to begin with. These are the results of the great story of human agriculture, a story in which our prehistoric ancestors methodically identified plants with desirable traits – the biggest, most flavorsome, or most disease resistant – and cross bred them.
While individually, the changes can be minor, over time, that process has radically reshaped what we put on our plates. Consider the brassica – this single plant, carefully cultivated over centuries has given us kale, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage and turnips.
But as remarkable as all this is, the story is far from over...
Why Modern Agriculture Needs Better Crops
Prehistoric agriculturists made the breeding decisions they did to cope with their environment. When food was scarce, making that ear of corn more nutritious and more weather resistant could be the difference between life and death over a long and cold winter. Of course, these farmers didn’t have a scientific understanding of the genetics underlying this process. Crop improvement was slow and produced random results, as genes interacted in unpredictable ways at the molecular level. Civilization and science have come a long way since then, but we face our own set of challenges.
What Challenges Are Farmers Facing Today?
"The world population is growing, and climate zones are changing constantly; with this there is more pressure on plants from diseases, and insects. We need scientific answers to these problems."
Weather extremes like droughts are threatening food security.
There’s also the small matter of commercial imperatives. It doesn't take a crop scientist to point out that we like to buy things that taste better, look edible and stay fresh on the shelf for longer, whatever the season. “Probably the biggest thing that has happened to impact what's on your plate is the ability to grow and ship fruits and vegetables year round,” says Tom Osborn, Head of Vegetable Analytics and Pipeline Design at Bayer.
In response, agricultural scientists and plant breeders continue to innovate, creating crop varieties adapted to different growing conditions around the world that are more nutritious, more resistant to drought, disease and other forms of environmental stress – as well as prettier and tastier.
But unlike farmers of the past, today’s plant scientists have a vastly expanded set of tools available to them, which they are using to transform how we practice plant breeding to improve the food supply.
Modern Solutions for Agricultural Challenges
Why Collaboration is Key in Plant Breeding
Innovations in plant breeding have advanced the prosperity of civilizations for centuries. Continuously improving seeds to grow more resilient and high-yielding, more nutritious crops remains one of agriculture’s strongest tools in fighting hunger and supporting the farmers who feed communities around the world. Bayer develops crops using cutting edge breeding technologies and an expansive library of germplasm. And even with the resources of a market leader, the challenges facing agriculture can’t be tackled by a single player alone. Having diverse germplasm – living genetic resources such as seeds or plant tissues that are maintained for the purpose of plant breeding and preservation – to tap into when developing new seed varieties makes plant breeders more successful in solving the problems facing global farmers – and that’s where collaboration comes in.
How Breeding Partnerships Support Smallholder Farmers
And that’s why Bayer contributes germplasm and genetic characterization data to other research programs around the world. The donation is intended to facilitate the incorporation of underutilized genetic diversity into modern maize breeding programs – including organizations that help improve regional crops for smallholders based on regional needs.
Donating germplasm isn’t the only way that Bayer collaborates. Since 2020, Bayer has partnered with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture to launch the Modern Breeding Project, focused on realizing crop resilience and yield potential for cassava, maize, cowpea, banana, yam, and soybean to support crop productivity, economic growth, and poverty reduction for African agriculture
"Our shared goals in leveraging research and product development are providing new solutions towards food security and empowering African scientists and farmers, supporting Africa rising to achieve the grand challenges in the face of climate change while developing new ways of working in a dynamic food system."
The Breeding Story Continues
More than 500 million smallholder farmers produce roughly a third of the world’s food supply. They face unique challenges that require tailored solutions.
The project builds capacity and scale by leveraging insights from Bayer’s breeding program models and best practices. “Our Bayer breeding teams engage in sharing best practices in breeding program management, design and use of digital tools that will support the IITA’s research priorities and product outputs.”
And that’s not all. Crop scientists currently consider themselves to be moving from the third generation of breeding, powered by genomic knowhow, and into a fourth generation. The goal is to build more flavorful, sustainable, and high yielding crops, which are more resilient against climate change from the ground up. And scientists they will do this for example by harnessing the targeted abilities of gene editing techniques.
“I would say the fourth era of breeding will be what we’re calling precision breeding at Bayer,” says Jonathan. “We’ve become really good at knowing how to find the best traits; that's what we perfected over the last 30 years. But precision breeding seeks to fundamentally change that entire approach. Instead of selecting the best traits, we are moving to an era where can actually design what's going to be the best from the very beginning.”