b'Figure 3. A win-win proposition for public and private innovators: an EU-wide virtual public-private breeding workflow with growing scope and predictive value by integrating outcomes from science and breeding in a data format of use for both parties. Public science may integrate past and current outcomes from e.g., genetics, biology, environmental conditions and soil, whereas private breeders may integrate outcomes and cultivation conditions from breeding experiments using such data. Artificial Intelligence approaches and smart queries and visualizations will offer evidence-based innovation starting points for both scientists and breeders. Progressive standards in e.g., variety testing could be used to set direction and focus. Critical will be a governance concept safeguarding public and private interests, and a self-supporting financing scheme to develop and maintain such platform.take into account location-specific priorities. While waiting forES: WHAT OTHER TYPES OF INNOVATION DO WE NEED?a proper LCA-based benchmark to become publicly available,MC:The agricultural value chains are operated by multiple stake-targets may develop already around requirements for soil, waterholders in an open market setting and tend to be locked in scope and nutrients, and, most simply said, translate LCA parametersand dimension. The arrival of new products cant be automatically into actionable breeding and agronomy targets so that progresshandled and often will need risk investments or phasing out of becomes measurable and communicable.less promising activities. With the current state of know-how in Personally, I would expect that yield stability becomesbiology, chemistry, breeding and refining, together with the soci-in future the key concern for farmers. Climate change andetal pressure to move to renewable solutions, it is very possible increased weather volatility will alter the condition of thethat an open innovation approach across the value chain from fields, lead to an accelerated migration of diseases and pest,academia to end-product producers, kicks-off demand for inno-and, equally important, put an unprecedented stress on cropsvative plant-derived products for new applications that require to handle volatile changes with greater extremities in e.g., sun- sufficiently high volumes and offer fair economics. light, temperature, wind, humidity and water. Both the volatilityThe challenge is to develop brainstorming sessions where and the greater extremities pose challenges to breeders, as theone brings together the right combination of expertise to develop solution asks for a sophisticated and unprecedented control ofand characterize meaningful, yet hypothetical product or pro-e.g., stomata, roots, pigments and wax-layers.duction opportunities. Such trajectories face the difficulty that It appears to me that in breeding it will be critical to lev- they easily turn out to be a waste of time for some of the stake-erage maximally in-depth insights about how genetics andholders as value contribution steps and value share principles are biological processes determine the decision-making in thedetermined on concrete outcomes. A nice example of the power different crops when grown in different geographies and underof value chain-wide open innovation is provided by the car different conditions, and to derive from there predictive breed- industry where Tesla backwards and forwards integrates into ing starting points. Along the same lines I see that the speedthe value chain, in an attempt to rethink production machin-with which diseases and pest geographically migrate, is a mul- ery, component production, end-product, transport, sales and tiple faster than todays breeding can address. Also, there is aaftersales, while interacting with customers and society on benefit from deploying in depth know-how on the biology andsocial media. Moreover, they build wholly owned links with an genetic make-up of pests, diseases and crops to derive smartemerging house-hold energy production and management sector breeding starting points. In this respect it would be great ifand prepare for next-gen transport concepts with autonomous state-of-art biological information would be presented in adriving. This spread of activities is leading to a redefinition of format that is better accessible for use in breeding, and thatworking principles in the sector and potentially even creates new breeders could make use of the most advanced new breedingindustry structures. It drives on balancing major business risks technologies such as gene editing, as these would enable thewith major business benefits, that for instance allow to bridge development of the best performing varieties in the shortestcritical, yet non-value adding steps, deliver uncompromised, time frame possible.integrated offerings, and, most importantly, allow for unbiased EUROPEAN-SEED.COMIEUROPEAN SEED I 33'