Mismatches in farmer and breeder targets
Sometimes researchers and farmers want different things from crops.
There is sometimes a mismatch between what crop researchers target and what crop producers want. We spoke to researchers and farmers at SIAM 2025 and find they have different goals.
Gene editing regulatory changes are taking place globally. We wanted to see what researchers and farmers see as the main benefits this technology could offer.
Most Moroccan farmers we spoke to see yield gains as the best outcome from new crop technologies, while researchers want to develop innate resilience for the reduction of chemical inputs.
Now of course we could say that increased resilience might raise the likelihood of yields, so these are linked. But note that few farmers are mentioning the same pest and disease resilience as a trait they would like to see - perhaps because they’re not struggling with this challenge… or they’re fine with controlling it through chemical means.
And the farmers are normally the buyers of the resulting crop varieties, so if researchers are not highlighting yield improvements in their products, would farmers buy?
These finings suggest we need to:
- Encourage more exchange between researchers and farmers to ensure both groups understand each other’s targets and why.
- Improve for a range of traits, but foreground the traits farmers want at the point of sale
Hopefully next time we could compare how consumers fit in here - would nutrition pop up?
The conference was also interested in how famrers and researchers learn about new technologies, such as gene editing. What we find is that farmer and researchers both use a range of sources to learn about gene editing technologies. Similarly, the survey found that 50% of farmers feel it is important to develop Moroccan GE regulation and that this aligns with international GE policy to enable trade.
Thanks to Anna Backhaus and Hafssa Kabbaj of ICARDA; International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas for organising this, and to Alasdair McKay of CABI for sharing this report on the day.
Lots of great take away messages in the report from Anna, Ntui Valentine of UM6P - University Mohammed VI Polytechnic and Imane Thami Alami of INRA French National Institute for Agricultural Research.