There is a growing trend to widespread privatisation of crop breeding, and there are grounds for expecting this trend to continue and even to accelerate. Possible consequences for Australian grain growers and the national interest of much greater private sector involvement in plant breeding are explored. Growing privatisation and commercialisation of plant breeding will lead to increased competition between plant breeders. While this increased competition has been at least partly driven by the potential for value creation, it also is likely to enhance value creation from plant breeding so long as there is adequate continuing investment in the capacity for plant breeding, and more particularly in productivity enhancing enabling technology. In the event of... |