MOTIVES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF GURT Industrial Interest in Relation to Seed Markets Breeding itself does not generate

income-breeders obtain their return on investment through the sale of seed. In most situations, farmers are able to reproduce their seed and need to purchase a small quantity of seed of a new variety in order to benefit from the breeding activities for several years. Breeding companies wish to have a sufficient level of control over plant varieties in order to safeguard their investments in breeding. Intellectual property rights such as Plant Variety Protection or patents are able to increase the return on investment to varying extends, and often at high costs. Biological protection systems like hybrid or V-GURTs offer a better insurance against free-riding. V-GURTs force farmers to purchase seed every season and T-GURTs can generate benefits through control over the inducer (the chemical that has to be sprayed on the crop in order to induce the expression of the T-GURT protected trait). The technology has the potential to turn less profitable seed crops like selffertilising cereals, cotton and legumes into commercially interesting products for the seed industry, especially in countries with an ineffective or very expensive intellectual property rights system. Furthermore, when V-GURT is combined with apomixis, seed suppliers can produce seed with hybrid vigour more cheaply while still protecting the investment. Apomixis is a system of vegetative propagation through seed, which occurs naturally in certain grass species. This has attracted interest of both public and private researchers because of new opportunities in breeding that transfer of this characteristic to major food crops (initially cereals) would offer in terms of using hybrid vigour in stable varieties. V-GURT-protection of apomicts has the best of both worlds: cheap seed production and an effective protection.

A more long-term benefit for certain breeders is the possibility to shield the use by competing breeders of particular genepools from use as parent material in further breeding. Currently, released varieties are widely used by breeders in order. Wheat breeding, for example, is largely based on the crossing of the two best varieties for the target area that are in the market at any time. Sometimes new blood is added when disease resistances have to be introduced into elite materials, but commercial breeders do not have the financial capabilities to invest heavily in such breeding. GURT offer protection of this investment since released varieties can not be used for further breeding by competitors, who will have to work hard themselves to introduce such important traits into an acceptable genetic background. Interests of Society GURTs can be used for the environmental containment of transgenic seed (V-GURT) or transgenes (T-GURT). Where the GURT characteristic behaves like a dominant gene, outcrossing of a transgenic GURT plant with wild or local germplasm will not result in viable seed. GURT thus reduces the environmental risks associated with the introduction of transgenic crops. This advantage will be particularly important for the release of transgenics in the centres of diversity of the crop species. A second interest of society is the increased investment in breeding that the technology is likely to trigger. Research investment in most major food crops is far below optimum levels. Public initiatives have tried hard to reduce this gap, such as breeding programmes in universities and public research institutes in the industrialised countries from the late 19th century onwards. Global public initiatives have initiated the Green Revolution and still encompass the main investments in breeding of major food crops that attract little private investments,

like wheat and barley (CIMMYT, ICARDA), cowpea (IITA), bean (CIAT), chickpea (ICRISAT, ICARDA) and groundnut (ICRISAT, IITA). At the same time, private research in tropical maize, pearl millet and vegetables has been triggered by commercial opportunities, largely through the use of hybrids. GURT is likely to turn more crops into commercially interesting seed products, thus relieving some strain on the public research system