This presentation was made for a talk delivered as a speaker on the "BioEconomy India Conclave 2018" at Bangalore, India. The talk was about the requirements and pitfalls associated with the application of plant biotechnology in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) seed industry.

1. BioEconomyIndiaConclave2018
March15-16,2018
Bengaluru,India
“Avenues and issues in applying biotechnology in the small
and medium scale seed industry”
Rajeev Taggar

2. • Small and medium enterprises (SME) seed industry is important for national economy,
rural employment & national and global food security.
• Biotech is cheap! For the SME seed industry, it is a question of making the right choices.
• Better coordination between the academia, the government and the SME seed industry
could be massively synergizing.
Conclusions
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3. • Why seed industry
• Why small and medium enterprises (SME) seed industry
• Biotech application for seed industry
• Large seed industry v/s SME seed industry
• Choice of technologies for SME seed industry: Case study - GM Crops v/s Molecular Breeding
• Choice of technologies for SME seed industry: Case study - Molecular breeding for SME seed
industry v/s Large seed industry
• The growth engine for Biotech in SME seed industry
• Conclusions
• References
Contents
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4. • Biggest provider of food for the nation – it starts with the seed!
• Agriculture employment: 54.6% (1)
• Seed industry size (2017): $ 3.6 billion (2)
Why seed industry
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5. • Big companies go for only the crop that yield big profit
• Captures a consumer niche not addressed-to by the large trans-national seed companies
• Biodiversity conservation
• Variety in food, better catering to local tastes and requirements
• Rural employment
• Self reliance: indigenization of technologies
• national economy
• Check monopolization in seed industry
Why small and medium enterprises (SME) seed industry
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6. Biotech application for seed industry
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• QTL mapping now established
• Fine QTL mapping required i.e. <5 cM for each
flanking marker
QTL mapping for seed oil content in oilseed rape
at John Innes Centre, U.K., 2006

7. Biotech application for seed industry
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• Massive time saving in all crops
• Must for crops like cabbage &
cauliflower, 3 yr by MABC, upto 6
yr by traditional phenotyping
BC1F1 Recurrent %age 94.6%
BC1F1 Recurrent %age 63.4%
AFLP Fingerprinting at Nunhems
Zaden, Netherlands
Recurrent contribution at BC1F1

8. Biotech application for seed industry
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DNA fingerprinting in maize at ICRISAT,
Hyderabad, India in 2006
• Varietal identification
• Legal protection (IPR)
• Inbred line purification
Heterotic grouping in cotton at Krishidhan
Seeds, Jalna, India in 2012
• Heterotic grouping
• Germplasm management
• Diversity analysis

9. Biotech application for seed industry
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Germplasm management: Dendrogram Cotton
~1600 acc Krishidhan Seeds, India in 2012
• Germplasm management ~200 duplicates
detected
• Massive time saving
Hybrid seed purity testing (3)
• Reliable
• Massive time saving

10. Biotech application for seed industry
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• Time saving in crop breeding cycle
• Uniformity
• Cheaper way:
- Inducer lines
- Minimal lab facilities required
- Area of active research
Doubled Haploid Dill (Anethum graveolens)
L v/s parental line of Dill (4)

11. Biotech application for seed industry
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Comparison of unsprayed Bt-cotton
and non-Bt cotton (5)
• Robust technology
• Long product development and
commercialization period
• Financially demanding
• Regulatory issues

12. Biotech application for seed industry
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Activities
• Hybrid seed purity testing
• Zygosity testing
• Pathogen detection
Techniques
• DNA markers/probes
• ELISA
• Immuno-assays / strip-tests
• Microscopy
• Microbiological cultures
• DNA barcoding
Molecular diagnostics

13. Biotech application for seed industry
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Genome editing
• Need to be ready with the technology
• Need to be ready with the regulatory framework
Doubled Haploid (DH) inducer lines
• Need inducer lines in multiple crops
• Need to direct research into genes causing DH induction for
the purpose of screening wider germplasm and transferring
into related crops
Upcoming technologies

14. Large seed industry v/s SME seed industry
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SME seed industry
• Time-tested and proven technologies
• Quick delivery: short timelines
• Readily available technologies
• Minimal risk in investment
• Minimal public & environmental
concerns
• Minimal financial resources: the R&D
expenditure of average medium sized
Indian seed company in 2013 was $ 2
million (6)
Large seed industry
• Want to stay on top as technology leaders
• Potential for novel research with distant
returns
• Can purchase promising technologies & hire
best trained professionals
• Have great capacity to address public &
environmental concerns
• Have deep pockets for capital investment:
Monsanto’s 2013 R&D budget was $ 1.533
(7) billion while Syngenta’s 2013 R&D
budget was $ 1.376 billion (8)

15. Genetically modified (GM) crops
Choice of technologies – case study
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Activity Discipline
Identify, isolate and characterize protein/s of interest Protein chemistry
Make a gene construct Molecular genetics
Develop transformation and regeneration protocols Cell & microbiology
Transform crop of interest, expression analysis, copy
number analysis, insert size & sequence, elite event
selection
Cell & molecular biology
Extensive environmental and biosafety testing Field testing,Trials with
animals
Regulatory approval by multiple governmental
departments
Ministry of Environment,
Health, Agriculture
Introgression of gene of interest into elite lines Plant breeding
Develop hybrid varieties for commercialization Plant breeding

16. Choice of technologies – case study
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Transgenic crops Molecular breeding
Timelines ~13 years (7, 8) Quality control: Few days to
few months
Crop variety development: 3-5
years
Expenditure At least $ 136 million
(including the regulatory costs) (6)
Affordable by Indian SME seed
within R&D budget of $ 2
million (Personal statement,
2001-2018 work)
Technical demands High Moderate
Procedural complexity High Low
Public acceptance Could be controversial Guaranteed
A comparison of technologies GM Crops v/s Molecular Breeding

17. Choice of technologies – case study
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GM crops - an option for SME seed industry
• Get on licence the GM crop events, which have been developed and taken
through the regulatory approval by the large seed companies and/or
academia.
• Follow it up by inbred line conversion and the development company’s
proprietary hybrids.

18. Choice of technologies – case study
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SME seed industry large seed industry & academia
Marker coverage Low to medium Low to ultra high
Analytical demands Low to medium Medium to high
Projects undertaken Marker assisted selection (MAS):
• Use published markers
Marker development:
• Fine-level QTL mapping
• Mapping: MAGIC, GWAS
Heterotic grouping All that SME does
DNA fingerprinting of inbreds/hybrids TILLING/Eco-TILLING
Germplasm management:
• Purification/ Removal of duplicates
Genomic selection (GS)
Inbred line stabilization Genome editing
Hybrid seed purity testing
Infrastructure costs Last lab made < $ 70,000 / < Rs 50 Lac ~ $ 1 million i.e. ~ Rs 6.5 Crore
Molecular breeding for SME seed industry v/s Large seed industry

19. The growth engine for Biotech in SME seed industry
Seed industry
Academia Government
Rewards for industrial relevance
M.Sc. onwards highly specialized
biotech courses, not broad-based
Few universities futuristic & publication
based, rest industrially oriented
Financial support for SME
Choice of technologies
Entrepreneurship
Breaking mindset barriers in staff
Employability, Seeds for agriculture
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20. • Small and medium enterprises (SME) seed industry is important for national economy,
rural employment & national and global food security.
• Biotech is cheap! For the SME seed industry, it is a question of making the right choices.
• Better coordination between the academia, the government and the SME seed industry
could be massively synergizing.
Conclusions
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21. 1.http://agricoop.nic.in/sites/default/files/Annual_rpt_201617_E.pdf
2.https://www.imarcgroup.com/seed-industry-in-india
3.Possibility of using High Resolution Melting (HRM) Analysis to identify the genetic purity of
vegetable seed samples, 2010, Li Rui, Thesis report in Genetic Purity lab, Syngenta Seeds B.V.
http://edepot.wur.nl/166687
4.http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/plantsci/vegetable/med/mdh.htm
5.http://www.learner.org/courses/lens/focus-in/2003/
6.Taggar RK. Democratizing plant biotechnology: the case of seed industry. J Microbiol Biotechnol
Rep. 2017;1(1):14-16. https://www.pulsus.com/scholarly-articles/democratizing-plant-
biotechnology-the-case-of-seed-industry-4052.html
7.https://www.statista.com/statistics/273312/monsanto-research-and-development-
expenditure-since-2008/
8.https://www.statista.com/statistics/273324/expenditure-on-research-and-development-of-
syngenta-ag/
References
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22. 15/3/2018 RajeevTaggar 22
Thank you