The project ECOBREED (Increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of organic crop breeding) is funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 funding scheme and brings together 24 partners from 14 different countries. The project ran for 5 years and had €6.2 million of funding available for activities.
ECOBREED aims to increase the availability of seeds and varieties for the organic and low-input sectors, to identify traits and combinations of traits suited to organic and low-input production environment including high nutrient use efficiency and weed competitiveness and to increase breeding activities for organic and low-input crop production.
The project developed methods, strategies and infrastructure for organic production, varieties with improved stress tolerance, higher efficiency and quality, and improved methods for producing high quality organic seed. One of the most visible results of the project is the registration of new plant varieties available under our registered trademark “ecobreed IMPROVING CROPS”. Among the results, we can also highlight the improvement of pest control methods in organic production of potatoes, soybeans, wheat and buckwheat.
The ECOBREED Organic Breeding Conference took place from 17 to 19 January 2024 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The three-day conference attracted more than 90 participants from 14 European countries as well as participants from China and the USA.
At the final conference, we presented a summary of the results of the ECOBREED project and invited high-level experts in the field to contribute to the conference: Salvatore Ceccarelli, an independent organic farming consultant, Micaela R. Colley from the Organic Seed Alliance, Klemens Mechtler from the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Freya Schäfer from the German Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Michael Schneider from the Swiss Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and many others.
There was also a very insightful Round Table on Organic Breeding, Varieties, (O)HM and Seed Availability with organic breeding and organic seed production experts (see livestream here).