b'Aiming for the 25 PercentPart 2HOW VEGETABLE BREEDERS ARE HANDLING ORGANICS. BY: MARCEL BRUINSA ccording to the most recent data, organic farming covered almost 13.8 million hectares of agricul-tural land in the EU-27 in 2019 (= 8.5 per cent of the total utilised agricultural area), an increase of 0.5 percentage points from 2018. The increase in organic area between 2012 and 2019 was 46 per cent. The EU Green Deal and its Farm to Fork Strategy, aim that by 2030, 25 per cent of agricultural land is under organic farm-ing, a whopping and seemingly impossible increase. To find out how vegetable seed companies are dealing with this ambi-tious target, European Seed consulted with experts from several vegetable breeding companies. We sat down with Anne Williams, Global Head of Protected Culture for Bayer Vegetable Seeds; Heleen Bos, Account manager organics at Rijk Zwaan; Bram Weijland, Organic program coordinator at Bejo Zaden; Paul Degreef, Head of Business Unit KWS Vegetables B.V., Marcel van Diemen, plant breeder at Vitalis Biologische Zaden BV and Pauline Fargier-Puech, Group Marketing Manager at Gautier Semences. This is part 2 of the story. Part 1 can be found here:Greenhouse cultivation of organic tomatoes.DO ORGANIC BREEDINGBos states their current approachSummer, says van Diemen. The variety PROGRAMMES TAKE MOREwith breeding for organic really leads uswas bred and selected under organic TIME? to efficient breeding, and new varieties. conditions causing the variety to have Under current regulations, our organicMaking a reliable selection is not ana very high resilience. It can be grown plant breeding programmes take theeasy job. It is a multiyear job, which hasfrom South Morocco to mid-Norway, and same time, and have the same efficiencyto be done in different environments andaccording to van Diemen is also one of and risks compared to conventional,under different growing conditions. It isthe best tasting varieties. To his knowl-says Fargier-Puech. Their breeding pro- so much more than just harvesting oneedge there are no other varieties with grammes rely only on traditional breedingfield; it involves years of selection work,such a broad geographical spread, and technics, by crossing sexually compatiblesays van Diemen. Also, disease pressureall because of the organic breeding and parents. Our breeders could also countis an issue of concern.selection process.on molecular markers to identify the bestJust to give you one example ofWeijland states the reason his com-plants that have desired traits, and accel- our organic approach: one of our mostpany chose for breeding for organic erate the varietal selection, she adds. important pumpkin varieties is Orangebecause that they are using modern 26IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'