eChapters

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan, (L.) Millspaugh, 2n = 2x = 22, an often crosspollinated crop with 20 – 70% cross-pollination, family-pea family Leguminosae or Fabaceae, genome size 808 Mbp) is a short-lived perennial shrub that is traditionally cultivated as an annual crop in developing countries.. It is grown in Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, Latin America and Caribbean countries. On an average, it is cultivated worldwide on 4.92 million hectares (M ha) with an annual production of 3.65 Mt giving a productivity of 741 kg/ ha. India is the largest producer followed by Myanmar and Eastern and Southern Africa (principally Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moecnch, 2n = 2x = 20, grass family Gramineae/ Poaceae, often cross-pollinated, 6% cross-pollination on an average, 730Mb genome, about 25% the size of maize or sugarcane) is a staple food crop for millions of poor people in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia. It is one of the important dry-land crops grown in marginal soils and a source of feed, fodder and bio-fuel apart from food. It is a short-day C4 plant, and its easy adaptability to hot and dry agro-ecologies makes it a climate change-resilient crop. Sorghum is considered as an often cross-pollinated species, with outcrossing up to 6 % depending on the genotype and growing conditions.

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. 2n = 2x = 14, grass family Poaceae, cross-pollinated and with C4 photosynthetic path-way) is the stable food for millions in the semi-arid tropics. It is adapted to drought and poor soil fertility. Pearl millet is a dependable nutritious source of food for millions in marginal agricultural areas. It is the world’s hardiest warm-season cereal crop. It can survive and produce grain even on the least fertile soils in the driest regions, on highly acidic and saline soils, and in the hottest climates. Pearl millet covers an estimated 31 million hectares worldwide with production of 30 million tons and productivity of almost 1 ton/ha and is grown in more than 30 countries located in the arid and semi-arid tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Maize or corn (Zea mays, 2n = 2x = 20, Family Gramineae now called as Poaceae, cross-pollinated crop) is produced more than any other grain crop globally. In the Western world, the term maize is used interchangeably with corn. The reason for this is that all grains were called corn under early British and American trade and the name was retained for maize because it was the most common grain in commerce. Although the origin of the word maize is also controversial, it is generally accepted that the word has its origin in Arawac tribes of the indigenous people of the Caribbean. On the basis of this common name, Linnaeus included the name as species epithet in the botanical classification Zea (Zea mays L.) as reported by Smith (2001).

Wheat also known as bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em. Thell, 2n = 6x = 42, family Poaceae formerly Gramineae or grass family, a self-pollinated crop), second only to rice as source of calorie has been grown on 218 million ha with production of 765 million tons globally during 2019-20. Top five countries, namely, China (135 million tons), India (103 million tons), Russia (77 million tons), USA (51 million tons) and Canada (34 million tons) account for 65% of the global production. Other major countries growing wheat are Ukraine (28 million tons), Pakistan (26 million tons), Australia (24 million tons), Argentina (21 million tons) and Turkey (18 million tons). Wheat is eaten by 2.5 billion people in 89 countries and distributed from Scandinavia to South America and across Asia. Global annual wheat trade is worth USD 50 billion.

Rice (Oryza sativa L., 2n = 2x = 24, monocot, family Poaceae formerly called as Gramineae, grass family, self-pollinated crop) is one of the Four Big Crops (rice, wheat, corn and soybean) globally and is the world’s most important food crop after wheat and corn. In crop year 2018, there was around 167 million hectares of paddy (rough, un-milled rice) cultivated area worldwide with production of 782 million tons resulting into a productivity of 4.68 tons/ha. The top ten countries in rice production during this period globally were China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, Brazil and Pakistan. Chinese production was 212 million tones followed by India with 172 million tons (FAOSTAT). Indian production of 172 million tons of rough rice can be converted into milled rice by multiplying a conversion factor of 0.67 and this way it comes to 115 million tons.

Biotechnology is defined as a set of tools that uses living organisms or parts of living organisms to make or modify a product, improve plants, trees or animals or develop microorganism for specific uses. Agricultural biotechnology is the term used in crops and livestock improvement through biotechnology tools. Biotechnology encompasses a number of tools and elements of conventional plant breeding techniques, bioinformatics, microbiology, molecular genetics, biochemistry, plant physiology and molecular biology.

The 15 CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) Research Centers are independent, non-profit research organizations, conducting innovative research. Home to more than 8,000 scientists, researchers, technicians, and staff, CGIAR research works to create a better future for the world’s poor. Each Center has its own charter, board of trustees, director general, and staff. CGIAR Research Centers are responsible for hands-on research programmes and operations guided by policies and research directions set by the System Management Board.

A significant development in the field of agricultural research in India is the formulation of All India Coordinated Research Projects (AICRPs), initially for the improvement of agricultural crops, but later extended to all aspects of crop husbandry.

In order to provide for the establishment of an effective system for protection of plant varieties, plant breeders’ rights and the farmers’ rights and to encourage the development of new varieties of plants it has been considered necessary to put in place a legal protection mechanism the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 has been enacted in India (www.plantauthority. gov.in). For the purposes of this Act, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority has been established and is located at NASC Complex, DPS Marg, Opp - Todapur, New Delhi-110 012.

The increasing concerns about dwindling biological resources globally led to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992. This convention for the first time, recognized sovereign rights of States over their biological resources and emphasized that access to genetic resources should be only for environmentally sound purposes and should be subject to national legislations. The access has to be on mutually agreed terms which inter-alia would include recognition of associated Traditional Knowledge of indigenous communities and equitable benefit sharing arrangements.

Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act-2001 (PPVFRA-2001) was enacted by government of India in 2001 to create a sui generis system of providing a legal framework as an IPR mechanism to protect the varieties of crop plants in India along with grant of breeders’ and farmers’ rights in the interest of all the stakeholders and also to comply with WTO guidelines to which India is a legal signatory.

The Seed Act 1966 was passed by the Indian Parliament on 29th December 1966 and it came into force from 2nd October, 1969. In addition, Seed Regulation Order was also passed in December 1983.

Varietal release and notification comes under the purview of the Seeds Act which aims to provide for regulating the quality of certain notified seeds for sale and for marketing and for the matters connected therewith. Released and notified varieties are offered for seed certification by the seed certification agencies which ensure that the varieties under certification meet certain prescribed field and seed standards failing which they stand to be rejected during the process of seed certification.

Any commercial plant breeding programme run by the private seed companies typically called as Research and Development (R & D) is carried out through various models operating. There is no fixed organizational set up and different companies adopt the working set up as per size of their programme, availability of manpower and resources, area of the breeding station and several other considerations. One thing is clear that any commercial plant breeding programme will have more numbers of crop breeders than the supporting scientists.

Indian Council of Food and Agriculture organized SEED WORLD-2019 (World Seed Trade and Technology Congress) from 18-21 September, 2019 at The Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore and presented SEED INDUSTRY SCENARIO REPORT (ICFA, 2019; www.icfa.org.inwww.seedworld.in). The information as given below is largely based on this report and other presentations made during the congress, particularly one by Kapur (2019).

Commercial Crop Breeding

The term commercial crop breeding is straightaway equivalent to ‘commercial plant breeding’ and remains largely plant breeding with slight twist that commercial plant breeding aims at delivering commercial products to be delivered to the end users that is the farmers as per the need of the consumers/ markets. Thus, the farmers plant those products (open-pollinated cultivars and hybrids) which are easily accepted by the consumers and which are easy to be handled by the traders as the products reach to the traders and then from traders to the retailers and ultimately to the consumers.

24.1 Introduction

In India, the commercial cultivation of oil palm started during 1970. Today about 16 countries of tropics cultivate oil palm. The palm oil has been safe and nutritious source of edible oil for human consumption for 1000 years. Palm oil and its liquid fraction palmolein is consumed worldwide as cooking oil. Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria and Columbia started to grow oil palm in a large scale during 1980. The commercial producing countries are Liberia, Peru, Angola, Senegal, Ghana, etc.

23.1 Introduction

Coffee is the second important popular beverage for its aroma and mild stimulant action. Its dried beans are roasted, ground and brewed to make a stimulating and refreshing beverage. Use of coffee has evolved from original chewing of leaves and beans of the plant to relieve pain, hunger and fatigue to the present more sophisticated uses, like espresso and decaffeinated coffees. Its use was first discovered in Arabia around mid-15th century.

22.1 Introduction

Tea is the most important non-alcoholic beverage gaining further popularity as an important “health drink”. It is consumed as a morning drink by 2/3rd of world population. Tea was initially used as a medicine and subsequently as beverage and now has proven to be a potential raw material for pharmaceutical industry. Tea is mainly consumed in the form of ‘fermented tea’ or ‘black tea’, ‘non-fermented tea’ or ‘green tea’ and ‘semi-fermented tea’ or ‘oolong tea’. Green leaves are also used as vegetables such as ‘leppet tea’ in Burma and ‘meing tea’ in Thailand. Tea leaves have more than 700 chemical constituents among which flavonoids, amino acids, vitamins (C, E, K), caffeine and polysaccharides are important to human health. The stimulating effect of tea is due to caffeine (1.25-4.5%). Per cup value of caffeine in tea is three and half times less than that of coffee and is less harmful than coffee. Importantly, the vitamin C content in leaves is comparable to that of lemon.