Corteva is founding member of Plant Breeding Innovation Management Program
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Corteva announced today that it is a founding member of the Plant Breeding Innovation Management Program (PBI MP). This new program outlines a set of responsible management activities that should be part of an organization’s research, development and commercialization activities for products developed through advanced breeding techniques such as gene editing.
Gene editing is one technology, along with conventional breeding, biotechnology, data science, precision farming and more, that Corteva teams are using to develop new products to increase farmer productivity, efficiency and sustainability. Gene editing can help speed the development of new technology by creating an improved plant using the DNA that is native to that plant. In short, it makes it possible to deliver improved plant characteristics that could occur in nature or be developed through conventional breeding, but with greater precision, efficiency and speed.
“At Corteva, we are committed to being good stewards for agriculture, which includes responsible development and introduction of ag technologies and providing transparent information about how our products are developed,” said Bill Belzer, global stewardship leader. “We ultimately hope that this will forge a path where regulators and societies understand the benefits that new technologies can bring and support these technologies so that we can continue to develop crops that meet the future demands of farmers and a growing global population.”
The development of the PBI MP guidelines will establish a set of global best practices that will increase transparency and speed market access of these important innovations for both farmers and consumers. It also provides a way for technology developers like Corteva to listen to the voices of society to understand their questions and better communicate the opportunities and benefits presented by new technologies.
This program serves an important purpose in providing guidelines as countries determine gene editing regulatory policies. Corteva’s view is that because products developed through gene editing utilize the plant’s own genetic material, gene edited products should be treated similarly to products developed through conventional plant breeding.
PBI MP is managed through the Global Stewardship Group (GSG), a non-profit organization that offers programs for management of agricultural technologies as well as stewardship education. Scott Mundell, senior manager of global biological permitting and compliance, represents Corteva as chair of the GSG board of directors and played a key role in the development of the new program.
The PBI MP guidelines will be accessible to companies of all sizes and provided free of charge to university researchers and academics to ensure that everyone can follow consistent standards and have a voice in the development of exciting new technologies to benefit the world’s farmers.
To learn more about the program, visit the Plant Breeding Innovation Management Program website.