International workshop on the promotion of Public-Private Partnerships for Pre-Breeding - 2-4 February 2015

The role of pre-breeding is increasingly recognized as an essential step to increase genetic diversity and the diversity of cultivated material, and to transfer traits of importance in intermediate pre-bred material that can be utilized in variety and crop improvement.

This workshop, under the aegis of the Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture aims to reinforce the public-private partnership around pre-breeding. It will focus on the importance of plant breeding engagement for long term breeding goals and improved resilience of our agricultural systems, the role of pre-breeding in the plant breeding programmes, the importance of public-private partnership for pre-breeding, the need for strategic investments into pre-breeding and breeding from both public and private stakeholders, the framework towards the establishment of a global platform for the development of crop specific public-private partnerships for pre-breeding and breeding, and the establishment of guidelines, methods, best practices, recommendations, standards for consortia agreements, collaboration and governance contracts, and funding models.

The workshop will be organized around:

  • The current and future challenges requiring pre-breeding initiatives,
  • The needs and gaps in pre-breeding and breeding,
  • The role of genetic resources in pre-breeding,
  • Intellectual property rights and protection of innovations in breeding of varieties
  • Funding of public-private partnerships and governance

Session 1 ‐ Pre‐breeding and PPPs: definitions and functions

Walter Trevisan, Consultant, Chair of the GEM project

Gabino Sanchez Perez, Wageningen University

Philippe Ellul, CGIAR

Petra Jorasch, German Plant Breeders Association

Michel Renard, Inra

Public‐private partnerships for Pre‐breeding ‐ a Nordic model
Morten Rasmussen, Nordgen

Session 2: Needs, gaps in pre‐breeding (and breeding) and what is done to meet them. What is the role of Public Private Partnerships?

Anke van den Hurk, Plantum

Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton ‐ CGIAR

Jaime Prohens ‐ Polytechnic University of Valencia

Orlando de Ponti, East West Seed

Session 3: What is the role of genetic resources in pre‐breeding? Do we have the required genetic variation? How should genetic stocks be conserved and made available?

What is in gene banks today and where should priorities lie for expanding the collections?  Should collections focus on making available more diversity of newly collected accession or should they shift their focus and also include the conservation and maintenance of genetic stocks.
Hari Upadhyaya and Michael Abberton, CGIAR

Presentations on pre‐breeding from a gene bank where conservation, pre‐breeding and breeding go hand in hand; the example of banana breeding at Cirad.
Jean Pierre Horry, Cirad

Regional genetic resources ‐ SPGRC
Paul Munyenyembe, SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre

Pre‐breeding and in situ conservation.
Béla Bartha, ProSpecieRara

Session 4: Funding to establish and maintain public‐private partnerships in pre‐breeding

Farmer supported research on lentil pre‐breeding: What has been achieved so far? How does the funding model work and is it sustainable?
Bert Vandenberg, University of Saskatchewan

Government (both research and development) funding for pre‐breeding: experiences and future directions. Involvement of private sector?
Jennifer Long / Nora Lapitan, USAID

Possible funding models for public‐private partnerships on pre‐breeding: The Syngenta Foundation’s perspective
Vivienne Anthony – Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture

Session 5: IPR and protection of innovation/investments in breeding varieties

Open source approach to pre‐breeding results;
Erwin Goldman, University of Wisconsin

Breeders rights and the breeding exemption; the use in pre‐breeding;
Petra Jorasch, German Plant Breeders Association

The role of patents in plant breeding and in particular for pre‐breeding;
Brad Kurtz, DuPont Pioneer

Exchanging plant germplasm
Isabel Lopez, Michael Halewood, CGIAR

IP Management
Selim Guvener, CGIAR

Need of IP rights in public pre‐breeding research
Michel Renard, Inra

Publiée : 02/02/2015