A reliable supply of home-grown food is essential to maintain a stable and prosperous economy. The normalisation of irregular climate patterns and the instability that wars and social unrest bring to world food markets have brought into sharp relief how vulnerable we are to global shocks in food supply.

I find it compelling to look at these challenges, and the critical contribution of crop genetic innovation, through the perspective of NIAB’s 100-year history.

NIAB was founded in 1919 in response to the post-war food crisis when there were serious shortages of seed, fertiliser and equipment to cultivate large areas of newly ploughed fields. Although the underlying reasons might be different, the food supply challenges of today remind us of what the country was facing in the years following the Great War.

Then, one of NIAB’s early priorities was the design and implementation of a seed testing system, with the primary aim of assuring quality for domestic and imported seed. In 1921, the Official Seed Testing Station became a member of the International Seed Testing Association, which to this day continues to ensure common standards for testing methods and data collection are maintained across the world for seed testing.

In this context, NIAB’s early work in variety and seed testing has provided the basis to define plant breeders’ intellectual property through the award of Plant Breeders’ Rights, which today supports variety registration and consumer protection through the National List system. In the early 1920s NIAB also established a system of performance trials to compare new crop varieties to existing ones…Read more