Episode 3: Breeders' perspectives on CPVO’s impact on plant breeding innovation

Welcome to Seeds of Tomorrow. Today we are delighted to host Pat Fitzgerald, Founder and CEO of Bill Tanics and Managing Director of Fitzgerald Nurseries, a global pioneer in niche food crop breeding and sustainable plant innovation. With over 3 decades in horticulture, Pat has been instrumental in developing new plant varieties including sweet potato, wasabi and Yakon, driving European supply chains and pushing the boundaries of what plant based production can deliver. Welcome, Pat.

You're welcome this year. And in studio, we have New Yorkia Vice President of the CPV. Nuria, thank you for your time today. Thank you, Alessio, and thank you for being with us, Pat. It's a great pleasure for us to have you here. You're welcome, Noreen. Thank you for inviting me. OK, so let's just start with your own journey.

I would like to ask you, I mean, what motivate you to enter in the field of plant breeding, how the mission of Beltanics takes shape? I come from a farming background, not UMM, so much harticulture, and however my parents operated a mixed farm regime back in the 60s and 70s and 80s. So I picked the piece out of the mixed farm which I prefer the most, which was vegetable production. And then I went to college and from college I was recruited to set up a UMM, an unusual horticultural enterprise, which was a training centre for people with special needs. And from there I learned more about plant production. And for seven years I worked with a group of people with special needs.

We set up one of the first horticultural workshops in Ireland and from there my interest in nursery production, plant breeding and vegetable plant production took off and diversified from our dairy farm and agriculture and I came back to the farm, got married and set up Fitzgerald Nurseries. Thank you, Pat. And that brings me to my next question. I mean as a as a breeder you have a challenge into marketing your own products, so I would like to touch on the difficulties the Breeders face today and how the system comes above to support them better.

What are the biggest challenges you face when taking a variety from the concept to the commercialisation? Yeah, I suppose to describe myself only as a breeder and I'm more of a generalist than a specific breeder. So we take our own breeding. So we have in house breeding and we work with outside breeders. So the motivation and to do this, uh, we live on an island, it is way off the centre of European horticulture. And when I started my business on the farm, it was meant to be a alternative business because we had a dairy herd and still a small amount of vegetable production. So we had to really choose carefully. Could we and compete as a new entrant into, you know, European horticulture?

Could we compete against the established Dutch, French, German and other nationalities? Or do we need to bring something unique where our competitiveness disadvantage, our contribution Also was an important element to me that if we're going to set up a business in horticulture or anything, our own DNA is that we would like it to be different to the rest of the industry, which gives us at least some chance that if what we do is good, it's unique. And then in 1999 I became involved in a government questionnaire about the new UPOV adoption by countries. And I think it was 1999 that Ireland adopted the UPOV. And this this came together very well with my wish to develop a business which has a unique

position not just in the Irish industry but in the European industry. I did not really think outside Europe at the time. But by default we started to get interest in our products further afield, in particular our Evercolour range, which is our our own breeding. So it was a progression between 1999 and 2006 that brought us into breeding plant breeders rights.

And in 2005 we purchased a plant micropropagation laboratory. So that sealed our fate to be involved in breeding. And I must stress very importantly, we rely on positive human and business collaborations with other breeders around the world. And that's a really important learning point and also an important risk aversion and collaborative approach to breeders who are private breeders similar to ourselves. Oh, thank you, Pat.

That's so interesting. Then I, I can see that you were looking for your own niche in the market and you found it and then you touch upon plant breeders rights. So how did plant breeders rights influence the way that you would invest in your breeding programs? How? How did it help you? Plant breeders rights, I would have to say without the ability to protect our work in the form of registration either under our own name are under exclusive sending exclusive access to other plant breeders work. And honestly I think we don't have a business when we come from Ireland and it is no secret that Ireland is cow's, sheep and beef.

That is the key core agricultural activity in Ireland and that is positive too. But our experience in harticulture meant that, you know, we had a limited market opportunity as an exporter and we're 97% export now and basically without the plant breeders rights, uh, larger companies would dominate, umm, anything that we do.

It's already happened on quite a few things that we've introduced whereby larger companies come in and they say, oh, look, that's a good idea. I'm having that. And of course they have A and had and still have a much better financial muscle and also sharper marketing elbows, uh, than a small SME private company can have.

And we're still, uh, small SME private family run company and without the access to plant breeders rights, I honestly don't think the business makes sense. Yeah, I fully agree with you in that sense. I mean we are here in the Community Plan variety office, which is the office that grants titles that are valid throughout Europe, a kind of intellectual property right of the plan variety. And then I would like to ask you how these plan breeders rights that are valid throughout Europe made the decisive difference in bringing a new variety to the market. I mean, can you tell us a success story, a particular success?

Story the The interesting thing about where we began, we began on as our first introductions from the perspective of our own plant breeding came in a very dose parallel to the first introduction of umm, a range of sweet potato varieties, which was the other model which we got exclusive license from Louisiana State University. So we were able to run uh, a parallel models. So going to the Kerix, we chose Kerix because it's umm, it's Kerix bushimensis.

It's from Oshima and Honshu Island in Japan. Umm, it is a windswept umm, plant in terms of the environment that it comes from. We come from a windswept Ireland island. So that was my thinking at the time that oh umm, this plant is very decorative. It is all year round colour. What will we call it?

So we came up with a brand name as well and we said once we introduced the first variety, which was Carx Everest, uh, out of an open variety called Carx Evergold. So we decided first of all, this species fits our, it fits our climatic, it fits our laboratory, recent laboratory. So we use mutation technology to develop the offshoots.

It's not easy to propagate. It can't be propagated from seed. It's sterile. So we made the choice and we went for it. And 1E of my past came through my head when we were choosing it because I remember being out in a field with my father and we have a grey, brown Podzalic soil which dries up very quick in the spring. And my father in less colourful language or more colourful language, was a little bit annoyed without the soil. Always when it you have to hit it really spot on. And he said this country is only any good for growing grass. So that's stuck in my head and the fate was sealed. We started working on ever color range and that was really how simple it was.

But the learning curve on ever color the fact that we were able to protect the varieties and meant that actually we did a bit of social media, of course as well. We were early adopters in social media, so we were promoting some of these plants. We added plants like farming and Blackadder. We had a few other individual introductions seeing Otis tuxedo.

So we started reaching out into the West Coast of America and generally into the US So slowly but surely, umm, our social media activities, which you were a kind of a voice in the wilderness at the time. It wasn't really as crowded as it is now back in 2006, age upwards. That combined well with the breeding.

And then the trademark came second. So we also trademarked the name ever colour, which to our surprise nobody ever did before. So that was really the beginning and yeah, the sweet potato and the ever colour became quite substantial part of our business now. Quite a journey indeed. And I would like to ask you being a like an SME, a small breather family company, what are the kind of the challenges that you are facing?

And is there any particular barrier that you have in accessing the glam variety protection? And is there anything from our side that you could we could do to support small breeders like yourself? I'd better be brief. Yes, it's challenging. Honestly, we're going through that challenge at the moment.

Funnily enough, we seem to be able to control better the ornamental plants. For some reason there seems to be more of a respect and a fear in the ornamental horticulture sector and maybe it's still more a personal individual, family orientated type of industry, whereas the vegetable sector is much more, yeah, difficult, let's say.

So our biggest challenge at the moment is in our sweet bit out of business. We are losing probably 50% of the IP value on imports coming into Europe and it's costing us probably the majority of our costs are going into controlling the sweet potato varieties. Even though people hugely acknowledge the quality, the trades and the benefits, the yield lift, the storage advantages.

I could go on of the sweeping out of varieties and that does not stop the market generally from selling them without paying back to the breeder and the Breeders rights. So right now we're having to umm, go as far as we can afford to. We just got a quote this week that it would cost us somewhere between 30 and €50,000 to challenge a particular, uh, number of wholesale wholesalers because we have to go back to the farmer, our legal advices and I don't want to go on from there.

It's just quite complex and to protect our rights. And sometimes quite frankly, I think, uh, pretty hard nosed, uh, individuals within the industry just really chuckle or laugh to themselves that the plant breeders rights even exist. And you know, I say that from the experience that we're experiencing at the moment trying to control a variety of sweet potato called Bellevue and two other varieties called Orlean and Evangeline.

So those 3 varieties are becoming predominant supermarket and general fresh produce varieties in the industry and they're coming in from countries like Egypt and elsewhere. And we are really struggling to control the supply chain to respect and approach the breeder representative in Europe. That's really, I suppose, in a nutshell, our biggest problem at the moment, A, the cost of enforcement.

B The the chain of command, we've gone to the customs, but that proved to be really, really a complex effort and see the actual bandwidth that it takes from running the business to control what is already a legally protected product. And honestly with the best of intentions, the mechanisms of the EU on a prop like sweet potato are quite difficult to use from an enforcement point of view for an SME.

If we were a much larger company, it probably would be easier, I'm sure of. Yeah, I I fully understand. Maybe we can give you some advice after this interview on on how to tackle those issues, but let's just move on on sustainability and climate change, which is one of the main main issues in at European level.

They are priorities for all of us and land breeding has clearly a role to play. So how do you see plant variety protection contributing to sustainability in agriculture in. If the EU, sorry. Yes, yes, go ahead. Yes. Yeah, if the EU is serious about its protein ambitions, if the EU is serious about sustainability and the plant breeders rights mechanism encourages normal everyday farming experts, younger people coming up. I have two sons.

They are not involved directly in the plant propagation part of the business, but one of them now is involved in our Butanix food ingredient part of the business. And again, we have a huge range of genetic lines from Louisiana State University mostly but not exclusively only. And by having the protection and the knowledge that we are going to be able to protect these lines.

We have some really interesting vertical integration now happening in the business, which you can see on the slide behind me. We go from, from the plant in the tissue culture to the plant in the nursery and to the puree that you see. And basically due to the fact that we have at least the reassurance that we can go back to plant breeders rights once we find a genetic line, it may not be the prettiest, it may not be the biggest, it may not be the most tastiest, but it may have a unique genetic trait.

For instance, for colour in replacing some of the petroleum and other synthetic base colours. It may have a protein. So we're working on chickpea at the moment. We're working on Peanut at the moment with a view to a European value chain. So exploiting the value chain in the most positive definition of the word exploiting. And it really requires us to have some sort of a protection of our work.

And the best one that we have available to us now at the moment is to protect that variety and its functionality traits can be researched. We spend a lot of money on researching functionality traits in vegetables and we're searching through at the moment 100 genetic lines of sweet potato for predefined functional traits, including colour.

That's amazing. There may be a concentrated on quality traits. As I as I say, I think let's just ask a question. Please go ahead. Yes, you mentioned the value chain and also touched upon enforcement in one of the episode from our last season. We spoke with Ignacio Jackie, a Managing Director of the Anti Infringement Bureau within the CPVO.

Our legal unit also organizes several workshop for customs authorities to help build capacity at the European level, starting with a better understanding of what a plan variety right actually is and then what customs officers should look for in practice. I also noticed that your logo includes a vessel which reflects your close connection to seagoing trade and border activities.

Naturally, given that Ireland is an island, from your perspective, do you see a need for a more streamlined, common approach to border control, specifically a shared understanding of what to look for and how to prevent the entry of infringing varieties into Europe? You mentioned that you face challenges with two countries.

Since Ireland is part of the E US external border, how do you see cooperation improving to address these enforcement challenges? Yeah, that's an excellent topic and point and there are some simple things. EU, our EU officials and employees could do on behalf of the breeding community. Umm, and I don't understand it.

Uh, I honestly don't understand when, uh, when a government or a Commission or an EU state entity passes a law that they do not have the resources to fully implement a lot. So if I'm speeding down the highway at 190 kilometres an hour, I am conscious that I will actually possibly, and in some states, towns probably, and in some countries definitely get a speeding ticket. And if I do it three times, I am likely not to be allowed to drive again.

It might happen that it will take a number of years for it to happen, but if I develop a habit of doing that, I'm going to be in a bit of difficulty as a business person because my license will be revoked and I will have to hire somebody to drive me. So that's fairly simple. But in the case of some laws, uh, they are passed, they're brought into legislation. And even if the people who feel they're infringed against, uh, report these issues, it is upon those individuals to spend quite a lot of money to actually enforce their rights. Umm, that's understandable In the case if we want, umm, if we want more breeders, if we want to keep up with climate change, if we want to keep up with sustainability, if we want the varieties as we have in a crop

that is in Europe since the 1500s before the potato. So sweet potato arrived in Europe before the potato, umm. And up until we introduce these varieties with the great work of Louisiana State University brought into Europe, farmers in Netherlands did not grow sweet potato. The reality, it's no ego trip or boast.

The reality is due to these varieties, there is such a thing as local production of sweet potato in the Netherlands, in Germany, in France and other countries. Even we search for one that will grow in Ireland. So if you want all that to happen, uh, when, um, small companies and remember, we're talking about small companies here. We're not talking about multi billion companies, but multi billion companies take advantage of these genetics and in the case of sweet potato, are taking advantage of the fact that these genetics exist.

So if you want that to happen, you have to do more than set up Horizon 2020 funding. You have to do more than that, spend a little bit of your cap money, whatever it takes on protecting the individuals. Companies way more accomplished than I am at what they do. And so there's a little bit of hypocrisy at play when you introduce a law that you're not willing to at least promote that this law exists.

And on the other side of the equation, then you have these people who will actually destroy breeding lines because they have made some scientific decision in their own head that breeders should not be able to protect their work under plant breeders rights. And these are the people, there is a whole cohort of people out there who actually misunderstand the reasoning behind plant breeders rights.

And they lobby and they disrupt and they do everything they can to stop SMEs like me and others protecting ourselves against the very large companies that they purport are abusing plant breeders rights. So it's kind of a like A1 shoe fits all. So we have on one side of us, the state, the EU and the individual member states who themselves do not always support EU legislation in plant breeders rights in proactive ways. As I think without saying any more you've you've seen and Francesca alluded to in a visit recently. So the breeder is caught in the middle of looking to one group of people like the breeder is doing something wrong by protecting something the breeder he or she has brought into this world and on the other side

being encouraged by the EU state to do so. But encouragement is only what you do for a child. And, you know, backup is what the whole system requires. And I believe the work that the CPVO does is, is fantastic work, but there's not, umm, you know, a backup. Then when the CPBO does its job, it authenticates that this variety contributes. So there's a whole fantastic mechanism set up there on behalf of the public because the EU system is very different to the American or other country system. The EU system does leave a lot of latitude to protect the public because in some ways a lot of breeders would argue and you know, it's when someone else can use your creation invention or, uh, breeding development

immediately for their own use. That's kind of tough. But I think people are generally accepting that for the greater good of society. So for the greater good of the effort. And I stop and I hobby, ask for the greatest good of the effort. I believe the EU instruments that we already have, namely the law enforcement could be a little bit more proactively helpful or maybe there's a group or an office somewhere that I don't know about that is set up to protect and the breeder. And sometimes, sometimes like a child, there needs to be an incubation period where it gives time for the public, for the industry, for the trade, for the consumer to understand why plant breeders rights to understand

that, you know, just like you fork out money all over the place to Apple, there's probably 50 inventors or more involved in an iPhone and everybody pays money towards it. They load their apps, they pay money towards it. But when it comes to the food you eat and the sustainability against environmental change, that that seems to be misunderstood. Yeah, the people think that they can do be done for free by breeders and then people is entitled to just access without any reward.

I fully agree with you. And I think there's a big misunderstanding for some sectors of the of the society and I think we need to better explain it. And introducing that, I have to tell you that we are in the middle of evaluation of the system of the European system. And I think it's the time to raise these issues.

They are heard and then then they something can be done upon it and then. Yes, I think you're correct. Yeah, I think we are moving on towards the end of our interview. I would like to ask you about the role of the Breeders in in the next years. You know, I mean what, what do you think you know your role is going to be? I mean, with the challenges that we are facing today and particularly as an SME.

Yeah, it's, it's difficult, but what hasn't been difficult in life over the centuries? You know, I don't mind difficulty. It's fine. It's called work, 4 letter word. So basically I think if and I look at my, my own family and I look at colleagues of mine. I had a phone call with a nursery in the Netherlands recently and he brought home a hard message.

Even though he is a fantastic business. He said succession and this is the word, you're hearing it all over Europe. It's not just in in horticulture, it's not just in breeding. Succession and sustainability are the two big words in agriculture at the moment. On one side there's legislation and heavy legislation, light touch legislation, but nonetheless legislation to enforce sustainability.

So that big S word has lots of money being spent on at universities, academics, umm overheads being spent left, right and centre by the EU on research projects. So sustainability is the big buzzword, but succession is a problem and it's a problem in breeding. Uh, most breeders I know are older.

I'm over 60 and most of the Breeders I know are over 60. There are a number of young breeders coming in and there's probably ones. I'm sure there's ones with aspirations and everything that exists. I think succession is a big problem in breeding. And if succession is a big problem in breeding, just think about that sentence because sustainability is seen as a huge problem. So therefore succession in breeding must be even a bigger problem because every cent or euro that you invest in sustainability will be diluted if you do not have the vegetable environmental plants.

And we're gone beyond the term ornamental anymore. Uh, we're really talking about environmental horticulture and horticulture is an environmental industry. And if people think different, then they just need to read a book or think harder. So if sustainability is such a big thing, breeding must also be such a big thing.

And I don't, I'm not a prophet of doom and gloom, otherwise I wouldn't get up in the morning. But basically I think the work that the CPVO does, this isn't the brief. You're doing a job which is part of a bigger picture. And I think if the EU is serious about sustainability, it needs to be very serious about breeding and the succession of breeding. As we know, for the new varieties, we should start thinking of passing on the good traits on the new generation of breeders.

Yeah. And if young people and young people have a really good opportunity in Europe actually to take for free what the older ones have done, because the system in some ways is beautiful that way it's built for succession because you don't have to buy another breeder's breeding. You can say I like that.

I like that. I take it, I use it. And OK, from my commercial side, I don't like it. But nonetheless, it levels the playing pitch, and the people who argue that people shouldn't protect fan varieties seem to miss all that. Uh, it isn't a pit, It's just a right to use the one you've developed yourself for your own commercial purposes. And a smarter younger guy can come along and get a better version of me and he can improve it or she can improve it. So I don't know.

Does everybody know that? And maybe that's one of the reasons. But I summarized by saying I think succession has a little bit of a problem. And if they're worried about succession in farmers, they should worry about succession in breeders. Yeah, I fully agree with you. I mean, it's not only a problem in the breeding world, it's also a problem in agriculture in general, succession. But then I mean, that also makes me think, you know, because there is always this dichotomy.

You know, people in general society love traditional local varieties. We want the tradition. We are coming back to genetic resources, but without understanding that local varieties, as good as they are, they are not adapted to the new challenges that we have in climate change. You know, the new disease, new diseases are coming every day. We are colds, we have droughts, we have floods, We have all these new challenges and unfortunately local varieties are not the response.

I mean, they are niches and of course they have to be maintained, but they are not the solution. If you have to feed the population in Europe, the population in the world, we need innovation. And of course, innovation is not free. Yeah, most breeders do this. They just don't shout pride. But if you go on to my LinkedIn page, you will see we do this.

We don't earn any money from it. We do it because we're interested in breeding and we make some financial gains from the commercial ones. But we have 26 varieties of potato in our nursery at the moment, done under proper regulatory plant health conditions, and we release them most years into the, umm, ether, and there's not many people who want them. So this notion that heritage varieties are wanted by the world is a false notion and due to the reasons that you did. But we still do it because we believe in it. So in the case of the potato example that I use, I have potato varieties dating from the 1890s sitting here on my farm. They're there.

If somebody wants a certified variety of those, we will produce them for them because we've earned money to build a facility out of the stuff we can protect. So nothing lives in a vacuum. So it's the Robin Hood, uh, theology you take from the rich and you give to the poor. And in some ways, umm, breeders do that anyway.

So it's a false and small breeders do it more than big breeders because big company breeders have a board to answer to. Sometimes we need one to answer to. So we do things that are non commercial. When I say we as SME breeders, private individuals, we do this. This is happening. It's just not being encouraged. I fully agree.

So finally, what what advice would you give to the young breathers that are starting out today and how to use, how can they best use the plant variety protection in their, in their new innovations, you know? I think you just did it. You use the existing regulatory works and all negatives and positives. You first and if you are interested and motivated to go towards breeding, you have to earn money from it. So either somebody gives you funding or you get an EU grant of some description I'm not aware of. Or you produce something that is valuable and you team up with a farmer Group, A farmer individual, a producer, A retailer, whatever, and you need to produce something good. So therefore you need to be good

at what you produce. And you identify the niche that you want to get into and you start small and work big and you will never be a Monsanto. Some people might, but they might not want to. But you will never be a, you know, a huge corporation probably in your lifetime. But I believe you will make a lot more out of the assets that you possess sometimes passed down to you from your father and mother. Sometimes you bought them, but out of a few square meters. Breeders tend to earn a lot more money than sorry, I'll rephrase that.

Good breeders tend to earn a lot more money than good nurseries, but they must work together, so the farmer and the breeder should be friends if you want to quote the musical Oklahoma. So basically my advice would be study the system and acquire the skills, and then you have an absolute world of genetics out there that the EU has made freely available to you under the regulatory instrument that exists.

Thank you so much, Pat Featurer, for sharing with us your history, your business model, your stories, and then your own experience with us. Thank you so much. Thank you and I appreciate your work in the CPDR. Thank you, Pat. Thank you Nouria for your time. This is the end of our episode and our time together.

See you in the next one.

Episode 3: Breeders' perspectives on CPVO’s impact on plant breeding innovation

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