Over the past five months, a team from the South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences in Germany (FH-SWF) has conducted an extensive Delphi study with 20 legume breeders involved in the BELIS project. The aim of the study was to gain a better understanding of what information is needed throughout the value chain to make the breeding of forage and grain legumes more demand-driven, and which stakeholder groups play a key role in this. The background to this is the assumption that the demand-led breeding approach, meaning the systematic alignment of breeding goals with the requirements of various stakeholder groups beyond agriculture along the feed and food value chains, may represent a promising alternative governance structure for financing legume breeding.
Across several rounds of surveys and through repeated feedback, the answers become increasingly accurate over time. In terms of content, the study focused on two questions: (1) How does the breeding industry itself assess the potential of demand-led breeding? (2) Which groups of stakeholders, e.g. feed manufacturers, food processors or end consumers, etc., must be involved to obtain the information that is most important for the orientation of future breeding programmes?
Following completion of the third and final survey wave, FH-SWF is now analysing the data collected. On this basis, recommendations for action will be derived for governance models and information flows in legume value chains. In addition, based on expert opinions, a follow-up Europe-wide survey of plant breeding customers will be planned and conducted.
