Vegetable breeding innovation in China and the Netherlands : a study at sectoral, company and project level

The seed business plays a crucial role at the basis of the food supply chain, and companies which are active in plant breeding and production and sales of seeds are embedded in a competitive environment. They continuously face challenges to develop higher yielding varieties with better or new qualities, optimized for sustainable production under a wide variety of growing conditions. To meet those challenges innovation through R&D is extremely important. For this study, I chose the vegetable breeding industry as the subject of this research and focused on two similar business sectors in two different parts of the world, China and the Netherlands