Research institute CropXR launched, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) contributing €15 million

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) will contribute 15 million euros to a CropXR research programme into ‘smart breeding’ of more resilient crops. NWO’s grant marks the start of the new Dutch institute, which will integrate plant biology, computational modelling, and artificial intelligence into ‘smart breeding methods’. Those will be used to develop crop varieties that are more resilient to climate change and less dependent on chemical crop protection.

In CropXR, four Dutch universities and dozens of plant breeding, biotech and processing companies will collaborate on basic scientific research, data collection and data sharing, education, and advancing the broad application of the results. Having technology innovation for crop improvement, including AI, as its core business, KeyGene is one of the companies contributing to CropXR.

More sustainable and climate-proof agriculture

“The fact that NWO makes a substantial investment in PlantXR, a ten-year research program central to CropXR, demonstrates its confidence in the mission of the new institute,” says Guido van den Ackerveken, Scientific Director of CropXR. “I am very proud of the collaboration of so many different partners and stakeholders in this program. Both universities, companies and stakeholders representing the green sector feel united in contributing to our mission: making crops more resilient, sustainable, and climate-adaptive. Thanks to the NWO contribution, we can now start our research needed to reach our common goals and make this journey a great success.”

Miriam Luizink, chair of the Programme Committee of NWO’s KIC innovation program, said: “With Long-Term Programs, NWO offers long-term funding for strategic research by public-private consortia. It provides substantial funding, which offers a powerful boost to developing a scientific field. In this particular case, it gives PlantXR, as part of CropXR, a better chance to successfully develop resilient crops that can remain productive even under harsh environmental conditions.”

KeyGene in CropXR

“CropXR offers KeyGene a great platform and outlet for our technology innovation for crop improvement. I am proud that we, having more than thirty years of experience in supporting smart plant breeding all over the world, can contribute to the ambitious CropXR research program,” says Roeland van Ham, CEO of KeyGene. “Being uniquely positioned between academic research and plant breeding business, we can play an important role in translating new knowledge about the genetics of resilience into technology innovation that will support breeders to breed eXtra Resilient crops”.

Integrating plant biology, computational modelling, and AI

In the research program co-funded by NWO, academic research groups and mainly Dutch plant breeding companies will collaborate in developing a ‘smart’ method that will enable breeders to make crops more resistant more quickly. By innovatively integrating modern plant biology with artificial intelligence (AI) and computational modelling, they will learn to understand and predict how plants, using a complex interplay of multiple hereditary factors, can better withstand stress conditions. Using this knowledge, they will then develop stronger, more resilient varieties of several model crops.

At present, developing more resilient plants is very difficult and takes a very long time. The newly developed ‘smart breeding’ method is anticipated to speed up the work of both traditional plant breeders and those who apply new breeding technologies.

Infrastructure, education, social dialogue, and marketing

In addition to research, CropXR will invest in shared data infrastructure. Together with universities of applied science it will also work to promote training for professionals. It will advance broad application of its ‘smart breeding’ method by interacting and working with breeding companies and other stakeholders such as consumer organizations, environmental and development NGOs, both in the Netherlands and abroad.

The sooner a wide range of seeds, tubers, and other starting materials for more resilient crops will be available in various markets, the sooner farmers and consumers will benefit.

More resilience urgently needed

Speeding up the development of extra-resilient (XR) crops is urgently needed worldwide because many crops are faced with more extreme conditions such as heat, drought, flooding, and pathogens, that are all more extreme because of climate change. At the same time, environmental regulations are becoming stricter, which will reduce farmers’ ability to treat their crops with chemical fertilizer, pesticides and other plant protection products. For agricultural production to become sustainable in coming decades, it will need crops that are more resilient.

The CropXR Consortium

CropXR is an initiative of four Dutch knowledge institutions (Utrecht University, Wageningen University and Research, the University of Amsterdam, and Delft University of Technology) and Plantum, the umbrella organization of approximately 250 Dutch-based producers of plant propagation materials who together are global export market leaders in starting materials such as vegetable seeds, seed potatoes and ornamental crops.

Apart from NWO’s Long Term Programme, CropXR will also receive funding from the Dutch National Growth Fund (a funding proposal submitted by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) was approved in 2022). Financial contributions also come from the Foundation for Food & Agricultural Research (FFAR), the private consortium partner and the four universities.

CropXR will help to make agricultural production less vulnerable to climate change and less dependent on artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides, thereby also creating growth opportunities for relevant economic sectors in the Netherlands.

In addition to knowledge institutions, dozens of public and private partners participate in CropXR’s work, including ‘green’ universities of applied sciences, biotechnology companies, processing industries, large and medium-sized plant breeding companies, and plant research company KeyGene.

More information from CropXR is available on the new institute’s website: www.cropxr.org