According to the latest report from the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB), the importance of plant breeding, agrobiodiversity, and agriculture as a whole is not yet adequately reflected in the German public debate. This is the case despite that in recent years the issue of the climate relevance of agriculture, the problem of the decline in biodiversity and – in view of the coronavirus pandemic – the social importance of safe food production and supply have been problematized and discussed more than ever before. According to the TAB, the organization of an intensive societal discourse on the goals and ways of sustainable agriculture still appears to be an important political task for the coming years.

HFFA Research GmbH is proud of its major contribution to the TAB report by providing the expert assessment “Strukturwandel und seine Bestimmungsgründe in der Pflanzenzüchtung – ein Überblick sowie öffentliche und private Forschungsförderung und -kooperation: Stärken und Schwächen bei Kulturarten und Sorteneigenschaften“. Our expert opinion to the TAB was based on a comprehensive literature and database analysis, as well as numerous interviews with actors from the private and public sectors of plant breeding. The evaluation of our assessment as well as two other expert assessments explicitly formed the technical basis of the final TAB report.

The TAB report was published via a TAB news on 25 January 2023 and can also be downloaded in German language from the TAB project website or as an official document from the German Bundestag.