Can the food processing industry contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity? Of course it can. Even in genebanks? Sure, why not. There’s no reason beyond a failure of the imagination to think that genebanks can’t participate directly in the food value chain as innovation partners, supporting sustainable products and market differentiation. Too bad there’s not a ton of examples. A pretty good one is NordGen’s partnerships with the food company Oatly. Oatly funded trials of more than 800 oat accessions, generating phenotypic and genomic data that identified traits valuable for taste and processing. The collaboration provided industry with suitable varieties while enriching NordGen’s documentation of its collection. This and a few — too few — other examples can be found in From seed to shelf: Models for integrating agrobiodiversity in food processing activities, from FAO and the Plant Treaty. I hope one day soon the coffee industry wakes up and smell the genebanks.
Really interesting point about genebanks getting more involved in the value chain. The NordGen-Oatly partnership is a great example of how pre-competitive data sharing can actually speed up product development while supporting conservation. It makes me wonder how other sectors could adopt similar models—like if anime studios or game companies funded trait screening of character design archives to find untapped visual potential. Sort of tangential, but if anyone reading this is into character creation, I’ve found a useful Demon Slayer OC maker that lets you experiment with traits the same way breeders trial accessions. Fun way to see the principle in a creative context.