The EU-funded Horizon 2020 INVITE project concluded its five-and-a-half-year journey with a final conference on Dec. 10 in Brussels.
Jointly organized with its sister project, InnoVar, the event brought together researchers, government authorities, plant breeders, policymakers, and stakeholders to celebrate the projects’ achievements and explore the future of plant breeding and agricultural sustainability, according to a press release. Hosted by Arcadia International with support from Euroseeds, the conference marked a significant milestone in plant variety testing, with all project outputs now available online.
Key Achievements of the INVITE Project
Under the coordination of François Laurens from INRAE, the INVITE project has made substantial progress in enhancing the efficiency and quality of variety testing for a diversity of crops such as apple, fodder grass, wheat, sunflower, soybean, maize, potato, tomato, oil seed rape, and lucerne, which resulted in the following three notable achievements:
- Development of bioindicators for climate resilience
- Introduction of advanced phenotyping and genotyping tools
- Recommendations for improving variety testing performance
The conference showcased key advancements, including trait-specific markers for tomatoes to enhance variety identification and a reference collection for heterogeneous crops. Cutting-edge phenotyping techniques were highlighted, such as drone-based measurement of plant height and biomass in ryegrass and a mobile app for evaluating tomato fruit characteristics. By integrating genomics, phenomics, and machine learning, these innovations aim to accelerate the development and commercialization of improved, competitive plant varieties for European agriculture.
Collaboration with the Sister Project InnoVar on Wheat
The InnoVar project presented its groundbreaking innovations, particularly in the testing of wheat varieties. By collaborating with INVITE, both projects showcased the potential for integrating their tools and methodologies to maximize impacts for plant variety testing.
Keynote Address by MEP Herbert Dorfmann About Legislative Actions
Mr. Herbert Dorfmann, Member of the European Parliament and rapporteur for the legislative proposal on plant reproductive material production and marketing in the EU, delivered a keynote address at the event. He emphasized the critical role of sustainable agriculture in ensuring food security amid global challenges. “Agriculture has never been as crucial as it is today,” Dorfmann remarked, underscoring how the revised EU seed marketing legislation aims to balance innovation with sustainability.
Multi-Stakeholder Panel Discussion on the Future of Plant Variety Testing
A key moment of the conference was the stakeholder panel, moderated by Jean-Paul Judson (NOWMORE), which brought together diverse perspectives from policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers. Panelists included Herbert Dorfmann (European Parliament), Philippe Lesigne (Bayer), Thor Kofoed (Copa-Cogeca), Jean Maison (Community Plant Variety Office), Monika Messmer (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL), Päivi Mannerkorpi (European Commission), François Laurens (INRAE), and Lisa Black (Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute).
Key elements from the panel discussion:
- Future-proof legislation: The new EU plant reproductive material (PRM) legislative proposal aims to balance innovation with sustainability, fostering resilience and adaptability in plant breeding. Päivi Mannerkorpi noted, “It is important to look not only at productivity but also at the resilience of a variety, which contributes to sustainability.”
- Sustainability in variety testing: Thor Kofoed emphasized the need for information provided to farmers about sustainability traits, and Philippe Lesigne called all relevant actors to aim for a common understanding and hence alignment of sustainability characteristics to enable transformative change in plant variety testing and to foster competitive agriculture in Europe.
- Fast-tracking innovation: Accelerated breeding cycles and cost-efficient testing were deemed critical to bringing faster resilient varieties to the farming community in Europe. Jean Maison remarked, “The time and cost efficiency are very important to advance the system.”
- Global outlook: Sustainability is a global priority requiring unified approaches. Philippe Lesigne stressed the importance of leveraging INVITE as a pilot to better understand relevant characteristics for evaluation.
- Organic sector: Monika Messmer underscored that improved harmonization and flexibility in the PRM legislative proposal is needed for varieties that could be used in organic agriculture.
- Enhanced collaboration: Exchanges among researchers, farmers, breeders, and examination offices are deemed essential for fostering innovation in variety plant variety testing and advancing concrete solutions to the benefit of agriculture and society.
Concluding Remarks
The coordinator François Laurens shared his reflections on INVITE’s achievements, including the development of a variety testing database prototype, tools tailored to Europe’s diverse agricultural systems and the collaboration with InnoVar. Laurens noted that the diversity of outputs will have a long-lasting impact on plant variety testing in Europe, paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient agricultural future.
