The Global Need for Plant Breeding Capacity: What Roles for the Public and Private Sectors?

For several decades after plant breeding emerged as a recognized fi eld of science in the late 19th century, almost all plant breeding activities took place in public institutes, and almost all plant breeders received their scientifi c education in public universities. Over time, the locus of plant breeding gradually shifted to the private sector, driven by the commercialization of agriculture and the associated privatization of agricultural research. The training of plant breeders, however, remained largely a public undertaking. Then, as now, private fi rms had few incentives to invest in an activity whose benefi ts accrue over a long period and are diffi cult to appropriate, since plant breeding skills are not fi rm-specifi c and breeders can easily offer their services to rival employers. For more than 100 years, the arrangement worked well even as it continued to evolve. The training of plant breeders, recognized as being a public good, was paid for mainly by governments, and plant breeding research, considered increasingly to be a private good, was funded more and more by private fi rms, mainly seed companies. Today, however, the arrangement is threatening to unravel. The numbers of students entering universities to be trained as plant breeders appear to be falling, as do the numbers of university graduates available to the plant breeding profession. Challenged to attract qualifi ed staff, universities and seed companies in industrialized countries have been fi lling positions by hiring experienced breeders away from positions in developing countries. In recent years, even this strategy has not been enough: the number of new entrants into the plant breeding industry has continued to decline, and the plant breeding profession has grayed noticeably, especially in the public sector. Many fear that if current trends are not reversed, the plant breeding industry will soon face a critical shortage of skilled breeders. This paper examines factors that have contributed to the decline in capacity building within the agricultural sciences and considers changes that will be needed to prevent what some feel could develop into a crisis for the international plant breeding industry. In addition to this introduction, the paper includes four sections. Section 2 discusses the knowledge and skills needed by plant breeders. Section 3 discusses how that knowledge and those skills have been acquired in the past and how they are being acquired today. Section 4 summarizes trends affecting global agriculture and shows how these have contributed to declining investment in the education of agricultural scientists. Section 5 identifi es actions that will be required to rebuild capacity in international plant breeding and contemplates needed changes in the roles of key actors.