Crop innovation: crucial in the success of the protein transition

KeyGene, the company well known for its contribution to crop innovations worldwide, is increasing its efforts to contribute to a successful protein shift. Things like good taste / color and high protein quality are crucial for consumers and processing companies, and all start at the beginning of the chain: innovative protein crop varieties. Keygene will use its experience and expertise in Crop Innovation to shape the characteristics of novel varieties of protein crops toward the needs for human consumption.

New and old at the same time

Protein crops have been grown for many centuries. All across the globe, crops like pea and faba bean have been cultivated by farmers, feeding both people and animals . At the same time, efforts towards crop improvement for protein crops have been very  limited; especially for human consumption of plant proteins. Innovation in crops like wheat, rice, corn, potato and canola, though, have been much more elaborate, resulting in high performing crop varieties with excellent characteristics, shaped for farmers, processors and consumers. This may have been caused by the mindset that people doing well, financially and socially, eat (more) meat. The ecological footprint of meat consumption and the high need for the production of plant protein feedstuff to raise the animals for our meat, has become a significant public concern. This calls for the novel knowledge based and efficient approaches to variety development at the start of the chain: developing protein crop varieties suitable for contemporary wishes of consumers and the society at large.

Innovation boost

Innovation in protein crops can now be achieved very fast, thanks to the knowledge and techniques developed for- and obtained within major food crops such as rice, corn and potato. KeyGene, the crop innovation company based in the Netherlands, USA and India, acknowledges this and has started research into protein crops a few years ago. Together with partners like Foodvalley, universities and institutes, local, national and international governments, plant breeders and food industry, choices are being made about innovation goals to be achieved and research is being initiated. This way, crop innovation research can boost first link in the chain of plant based proteins – innovative protein crops – in order to get the best product for the best price at the last link: the consumer.