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Global impact of accelerated plant breeding: Evidence from a meta-analysis on rice breeding.

ABSTRACT: Rice breeders in Asia and elsewhere in the world have long overlooked trying to shorten the time it takes to develop new varieties. Plant breeders have proposed a technique called Rapid Generation Advance (RGA) as a way to accelerate the results of public rice breeding programs. However, little is known about RGA's potential impact. Here, we present the first results of a global impact study of RGA. More specifically, we calculated the multiplicator effects of RGA on the research benefits generated by conventional rice breeding programs and applied them to a meta-analysis of selected impact studies in the literature. These insights are a first crucial step in developing a targeted approach for disseminating RGA technology among rice breeders to accelerate the impact of their public rice breeding programs around the world. We show that the additional benefits due to time savings are considerable and offer some insights into the economics of breeding. Our results confirm that the adoption of accelerated breeding would lead to substantial advantages to rice breeding programs and the earlier variety release leads to significant economic benefits to society. This can be important to policy makers when reshaping their public breeding methods and optimising their return on research investments in breeding.

SUBMITTER: Lenaerts B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6001956 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundDespite the critical role rice breeders play to ensure food security, there is a lack of information regarding their current socio-economic characteristics, constraints and attitudes towards technology adoption. Some key concepts like budget, experience, local ecosystems, level of education and even main breeding method have hardly been surveyed in the past. This not only clouds any policy making regarding scientists in national agricultural research programmes, it also makes it difficult to assess the needs and problems local rice breeders face around the world.MethodsA global online survey was conducted reaching 189 rice breeders from 51 rice-growing countries around the world. The questionnaire was structured according to an adoption framework we proposed from the literature. We specifically investigated their attitudes to adopting an alternative breeding method called rapid generation advance (RGA) (also known as single seed descent). To provide some historical perspective, we compare our results with those reported by Hargrove (Rice breeders in Asia: a ten-country survey of their backgrounds, attitudes, and use of genetic materials, 1978), the only published survey on rice breeders.ResultsOverall, rice breeders are highly educated and have a long experience with their main breeding method. However, a gender gap with respect to education seems to persist. Large variation in resources (staff, land and budget) was observed with a small number of resource-rich institutes and a large number of resource-poor institutes. Most rice breeders are focused on breeding for irrigated conditions. Most breeders have a relatively high degree of risk taking and time preference towards shorter breeding cycles. The majority of breeders are aware of RGA and its benefits with more than half having observed RGA in practice. Finally, breeders are confident in the RGA technique and estimate its resource savings to be substantial.ConclusionsBreeders' willingness to adopt RGA was remarkably high. Surprisingly, adoption of RGA remains low (4% as main method). This may suggest that the benefits of using the RGA method still need to be further demonstrated in rice breeding. Our results could be useful to develop targeted extension material or interventions for implementing new technologies, which could be useful to high-level agricultural managers, international research centres and aid agencies.

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Global impact of accelerated plant breeding: Evidence from a meta-analysis on rice breeding.

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