Varietal and genetic diversity sustain modern agriculture and is provided by breeding systems. Failures in these systems may cause insufficient responses to plant diseases, which threatens food security. To avoid these failures, an understanding of the governance challenges in providing varietal and genetic diversity is required. Previous studies acknowledge the complexity of seed breeding, framing the discussion in terms of rivalry and excludability. We consider breeding systems as social-ecological systems that focus on activities that generate varietal and genetic diversity and their adaptive ability. We use an inductive approach based on qualitative methods combined with the social-ecological system framework (SESF) to depict how highly context-dependent German winter wheat breeding, multiplication, and farming activities are. Our results show that the challenges for governance lie in providing credible and symmetric information on variety performance to all actors. This is the means to steer actors into collective action by subcontracting, buying, or saving seed. Based on our application of the SESF to the German wheat breeding system, we propose to develop a more general, sectoral SESF for the sustainable governance of plant breeding by offering an adaptable template for analyses of seed systems in other contexts.

中文翻译：

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了解品种和遗传多样性的治理

品种和遗传多样性维持现代农业，并由育种系统提供。这些系统的故障可能导致对植物病害的反应不足，从而威胁粮食安全。为了避免这些失败，需要了解提供品种和遗传多样性的治理挑战。先前的研究承认种子育种的复杂性，根据竞争性和排他性来构建讨论。我们将育种系统视为社会生态系统，其重点是产生品种和遗传多样性及其适应能力的活动。我们使用基于定性方法的归纳方法结合社会生态系统框架 (SESF) 来描述德国冬小麦育种、繁殖和农业活动的高度依赖环境。我们的研究结果表明，治理的挑战在于向所有参与者提供有关多样性表现的可信且对称的信息。这是通过分包、购买或保存种子来引导参与者采取集体行动的手段。基于我们将 SESF 应用于德国小麦育种系统，我们建议通过为其他情况下的种子系统分析提供适应性模板，开发更通用的部门 SESF，以实现植物育种的可持续治理。