East Malling Research (EMR) and its licensing agent Meiosis Ltd are to end their 18-year relationship on the commercialisation of strawberry varieties, two years ahead of schedule.
This will make way for a new Strawberry Breeding Club.
The move will allow EMR to restructure its funding base for strawberry breeding and to bid for new strategic funding from Defra.
The decision follows a formal request from EMR and the Horticultural Development Council (HDC), which have been working together to establish new funding arrangements for strawberry breeding in the UK.
The request was unanimously approved at a funders’ meeting on February 13.
It is hoped that the new Strawberry Breeding Club will give EMR access to distribution networks at an early stage in variety development and provide quicker routes to the international market.
The new club is looking for up to 10 shareholder members from the UK and overseas.
Dr Colin Gutteridge, chief executive officer at EMR, said: “This proposed change in the funding base for strawberry breeding at EMR is designed to be the catalyst that will liberate our pipeline of new opportunities and help EMR to achieve its aim of being the world-leading centre for strawberry breeding. A further tranche of strategic funding from Defra is necessary to underpin the development of the national programme but, in the long term, we aim to make the programme self-financing.
“Meiosis will continue to hold the commercialisation rights to our legacy varieties and we will continue to work with them to maximise uptake of EMR varieties by the European strawberry industry.”
Meiosis will continue to trial and commercialise EMR-bred varieties that are already in or scheduled for grower trials over the next five years.
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