Germany
June 20, 2023
Cape Town gathered the biggest seed congress in the Southern Hemisphere. The International Seed Federation (ISF) World Seed Congress took place from 5-7 June, 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa, bringing together seed professionals from all over the world. "Shared roots, greater heights" reflects the spirit of Ubuntu - "I am because we are." It also reflects the collective vision as a sector, highlighting the role of seed as the starting point of sustainable agriculture, with innovation as the way forward.
Central to the conference were the challenges of growing global food demand and a changing climate. These put intense pressure on farmers, growers and agricultural companies to produce new plant varieties quickly while meeting the global needs of sustainability. The guiding idea was that we need innovative technologies to meet these challenges:
- Digital ag tech should help food production become more efficient
- Quick adaptation to climate change and a sustainable crop production call for plant breeding innovation and novel technologies
- Gene editing and predictive breeding can address critical challenges faced in the seed industry today.
Computomics had many intense conversations at ISF around the challenges different breeders are facing. Ruth Mayes and Vesna Tabakovic discussed issues Australia faces in grass forage breeding; India, Turkey or Japan in vegetable breeding; South Africa in cereals breeding; and South and North America in maize breeding. The one thing they all have in common is: they are ready to leverage innovative data-driven tech to develop sustainable, cost-effective, adaptive new varieties.
We considered the conference a great success. With a wealth of new information and a multitude of valuable discussions we are confident to be part of the solution global agriculture needs. Our disruptive machine learning technology transforms traditional plant breeding processes, supplementing the plant breeders' toolbox. Integrating an extensive set of additional variables such as climate, future regional climate, soil microbiome, genetic diversity and agricultural practices, we enable the plant breeder to dramatically improve breeding efficiency and genetic gain for today’s and future climates.
Reach out to Ruth at ruth.mayes@computomics.com or Vesna at vesna.tabakovic@computomics.com if you're interested in learning the benefits of our disruptive machine learning technology ⨉SeedScore® for your breeding program!
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