b'The 1 stInternational Wheat Congress (IWC) brought together 900 people from 50 countries. Photo courtesy IWCboosting breeding budgets, sharing genomic advances, leveraging new technologies, and increasing research on orphan crops.The Funding ChallengeAccording to the WRI report, the world probably devotes only around 1.41.7% of agricultural GDP to agricultural research and development, which is less than the rate of total research spending relative to the total global econ-omy (2.1%).Richard Gray, agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan, gave a talk titled Successes and Failures in International Wheat Royalty Collection. He said strengthening plant breeders rights through royaltyMartin Kropff, director-general of the International Maize and Wheat collection is one way to ensure more stable funding forImprovement Center, spoke on the opening day of the congress.variety development, an initiative currently underway in Canada through an attempt to create a value creationInternational Wheat Conference held every four years. system via either a trailing royalty or end-point royalty. The two groups agreed to join their efforts to create IWC, But there are challenges. According to Gray, UPOVsaid international organizing committee chair Hermann 1991 Plant Breeders Rights alone has generally failed toBrstmayr. create a viable private wheat breeding industry.Wheat is in terms of acreage the largest crop on our Producer support is an essential element of increasedglobe. Wheat is needed for food, feed and materials in royalty collection and support has come where producerscountless ways and wheat is a staple food for around have some long-term ownership in wheat breeding pro- two billion people, many of whom live in [developing] grams, he said. Public and producer partnerships havecountries. Research has to play its role to deliver know-played an important role in providing additional breedinghow, improved production tools and improved cultivars to resources while enhancing knowledge sharing. make wheat production sustainable, he said. Challenges are plentiful, as they have always been. Bringing Researchers Together Certainly, the more erratic weather extremes will be an This first IWC event was a merger of two previouslyimportant issue, cultivars need possibly more resilience parallel wheat symposia: the International Wheat Geneticsand buffering capacity than before. Heat stress is very Symposium that took place every five years and thelikely to increase. Also, resource efficiencyparticularly NOVEMBER 2019GERMINATION.CA 19'