Status and perspective of plant breeding and seed industry in Serbia

Abstract

Serbia is a country with favourable agro-ecological conditions for agricultural production, especially for maize, sunflower, soybean, sugar beet and small grain cereals. Also, the tradition of successful seed production and plant breeding, include Serbia in countries with significant potential for the seed industry. Significant areas are used for seed production, and in 2014. for wheat, maize, soybean and sunflower this amounted: 19.003 ha, 10.487 ha, 8.116 ha and 1.590 ha, respectively. The events during the 1990s, international sanctions and civil war, depleted the national seed industry concerning material resources and the status. Transitional events that followed brought a series of changes in all activities including ownership, technology, commerce and the market. Currently, in addition to several state-own Institutes, a large number of international and national private seed companies compete on the Serbian market. Despite many stated negative trends for national seed industry, Serbia is still one of the major seed producers in Europe. Also, Serbia is still one of the countries whose results in plant breeding are competitive with the world's leading companies. With certain improvements Serbia can become an even better place for the seed industry. At the same time, we must not ignore the role of the public sector in the conservation of natural and technological resources, as well as development in plant breeding and seed sciences of our country.