327 Improved cereal production through biotechnology: Challenges for the agbiotech industry.

John Bloomer. Commercial Wheat Biotechnology Manager, ZENECA Plant Science, UK.

Through biotechnology, and especially functional genomics, it is anticipated that we will be able to influence fundamentally both the yield and quality of cereal crops. However for these discoveries to lead to new commercial varieties in a timely fashion a number of hurdles need to be overcome, which I will examine in my presentation. Given the global nature of wheat consumption and trade, broad consumer acceptance of the technology is important. We need to respect public concerns and be able to point to clear benefits for consumers. To modify grain quality effectively, a more detailed understanding at a molecular level of the quality determinants of the various downstream processes is required. Furthermore, this will potentially result in greater segmentation of the wheat crop, generating speciality wheat varieties for specific processing industries. These new varieties will need to generate sufficient and sustainable added- value to allow their identity preservation through a complex value chain to prevent the dilution of the enhanced properties by blending with commodity wheat.