By Hannes Lorenzen

July 2023, Mariager, Denmark.

It was my fourth meeting in three years with Anders Borgen, founder of the association Agrologica. We had met in Austria at Arche Noah’s meeting on the new EU organic regulation, then at the European breeders, bakers and brewers meeting in Kalö in 2019, and on Pellworm island in 2021, with a group of breeders and farmers.

This time, in a rainy period of harvest season in July, we visited his fields, storage and analytic facilities of seed accessions, - an amazing moment for me and a precious moment of time which Anders offered despite his very long working days.

© Hannes Lorenzen

Hannes Lorenzen. When we met, Anders had just come back from a meeting with cereal breeders in Austria focusing on common bunt in wheat*. This is one of his core fields of research and of his breeding interests. Anders, what did you bring back from that meeting?

I was surprised that KWS, the major German breeding company, seems now to be seriously interested in breeding organic cereal varieties. I think this is good news, because if we want to end the chemical treatment against this most important fungus infection of wheat, we need serious breeding for resistance against the common bunt in wheat varieties. This is not only important for the organic sector; it will be also very important for conventional crop production.

So, you trust KVS that your research done over decades will not just be skimmed off by a company? That you will have the honor and they the money?

That's simply the way it is. I know that they will profit from my knowledge, but I have no problem with that. The most important point is that we make wheat common bunt resistant, so that we can drop the chemical treatment. If that is the result of a collaboration between KWS and me, that's fine.

They have promised to share knowledge and resources and I did that too. They cannot take away or replace what I did so far, and I have not the means to do the next necessary steps alone.

I do understand other breeders who have invested a hell of a lot of money and need to have a decent return. I have been working with very low budget so far and I am mainly interested to get the bunt and the chemicals out of the wheat. If we get the seed companies use bunt resilient varieties that would be a huge success for all – not necessarily for the chemical companies, but for farming and society.

* Common bunt is a disease of both spring and winter wheats. It is caused by two very closely related fungi, Tilletia tritici (syn. Tilletia caries) and T. laevis (syn. T. foetida). It is a major disease in organic wheat. In conventional agriculture, common bunt is routinely managed with the use of synthetic chemical seed treatments. For this reason, common bunt is considered as relatively unimportant disease in conventional agriculture. However, since synthetic chemical inputs are prohibited in organic agriculture, common bunt is a major threat once more in organic wheat and seed production. The challenge today is to manage the disease without the use of chemical seed treatments.

You have been carrying out an impressive research work over decades with a broad range of wheat varieties and of virulent varieties of bunt in order to identify genes of resistance against the bunt. How does your research work match with your wider breeding programme?

It seems you are not looking for help from bigger breeders brothers like KWS, but you also could imagine to pact with the devil. What about some help from crispr cas in order to knock out genes which allow to breed bunt resistant wheat?

Nevertheless, I share the view that new GMOs are still genetically modified organisms with all the risks which that modification carries, and they must be legally treated and labelled as such.

And by the way: we should be honest as organic breeders that we already use plenty of varieties of conventional breeding to improve the performance of our organic varieties.

Your farm looks like an immense patchwork of diversity, but also like an endless demand for attention and care for specific breeds and polycultures. You have only a few people employed to support you. How do you balance your ambitions in research and breeding with the support you effectively need in terms of work and money?

We're still in a niche where we shouldn't be any more. We've top varieties, but we need more multipliers, farmers, and bakers to work with us.

Your barn with its seed treatment and storage facilities are a unique assembly of machinery and analytical instruments. Everything is small and resonates beauty. From a mini combiner to the small treshing machine, tools for cleaning, drying, sorting, measuring, milling and analytical taxation of flour quality, this place feels like a celebration of the value and the power of seeds. Not many people will have the privilege of visiting this place. How do you reach out to people's attention and understanding for the changes we need in our farming and food system?