In a recent study we concluded that genetic crop improvements of the past 20 years have contributed various socio-economic and environmental benefits and that future plant breeding progress will continue to do so.

The analysis, however, focused on ten (groups of) EU arable crops only, while specialty crops were not subject of the research. Therefore, it was the objective of this addendum to provide additional sophisticated quantitative information and additional qualitative arguments on the socio-economic values and environmental benefits of plant breeding for two specialty crops: tomato and alfalfa. The findings on these various benefits from the main study could also be confirmed for these special species.

The study and its results can be downloaded here.

For a high-resolution version of the study, please download here.