Major international research programme to accelerate breeding of climate-resilient crops

The four-year programme is funded by the Gates Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation and has a total budget of $50 million.

The need for climate-resilient crops is urgent. Climate change is increasing the risk of crop failures and unstable yields worldwide, due in part to rising temperatures and water scarcity. Geopolitical instability can also disrupt trade and the supply of agricultural inputs, such as fertilisers. 

Modern crop breeding has delivered major yield gains over recent decades, but some traits remain difficult to improve quickly because they are controlled by many interacting genes. Traditional breeding can also take considerable time and depends on available genetic diversity. When plants are crossed, desirable traits are not always inherited separately from undesirable ones, meaning unwanted characteristics may be passed on as well. Using the current tools, it is not possible to respond quickly to changing local conditions and the evolving needs of farmers and others in the value chain.

Professor and Chair of Plant Breeding Agnieszka Golicz is the Scientific Lead for TRITON and played a central role in defining the programme. She explains the scientific challenge: “Abiotic stress tolerance is one of the most difficult traits to improve because it is controlled by many genes. By bringing together experts in modelling and molecular biology from around the world, we can use gene editing to target the most promising genes and introduce those changes directly into top-performing plant lines. Ultimately, this will help us deliver improved varieties to growers much more quickly."

TRITON stands for Traits for Resilience Initiative for Transformative Outcomes for Novel Crops. Within the programme, researchers will use artificial intelligence to identify genes that are important for desirable crop traits. Computer models will help predict how genes and environmental conditions together affect plant growth and performance.  Advanced technologies such as CRISPR will be applied to make targeted changes to DNA. And top-performing varieties will be tested in field trials across multiple continents.

With a foundational commitment to global access, the programme aims to deliver an open-access breeding toolbox that enables researchers and breeders everywhere to accelerate crop improvement. Through open datasets, interoperable models, and globally accessible gene-editing technologies, TRITON seeks to lower the innovation barriers for small- and medium-sized breeders, NGOs, and organisations in low- and middle-income countries. By bringing together leading institutions across Europe, North America, India and Africa, the programme ensures that the benefits of advanced breeding technologies are shared widely and can contribute to more resilient food systems around the world. 

Director of Plant Sciences, Richard Harrison, applauds this initiative as part of WUR’s commitment to making technologies accessible. “Equitable access to underpinning technologies for trusted parties is something that Wageningen has championed in this area since 2021. By bringing down barriers to innovation and working together in this global partnership, the benefits of developing climate-resilient, sustainable crops using the latest technologies will be realised more rapidly by partners, leading to broad societal benefits.”

The needs of farmers and other parties in the food value chain are an important starting point for the programme. TRITON develops and applies a large language model-based survey platform to gather input from tens of thousands of farmers and value chain actors, and design-thinking models to identify creative solution routes. Researchers use the input to perform farmer and value chain-directed breeding. Ultimately, the tools developed in TRITON will enable farmers around the world to grow climate-resilient crops bred for the conditions in which they farm and the markets they supply.

The TRITON programme will initially focus on maize, rice and sorghum, staple crops of global relevance. As an initial proof-of-concept trial, researchers will focus on early vigour and on the ability of seeds to germinate well under stress.

The programme brings together leading academic institutions across technology hubs in Northwest Europe (WUR, Utrecht University, University of Copenhagen, Justus Liebig University Giessen and Aarhus University), California (UC Davis and the Innovative Genomics Institute) and Kenya (Kenyatta University) to advance open science and globally accessible breeding technologies. Innovative start-ups and research institutes in Europe and North America accelerate the development of next-generation gene-editing and AI technologies, while partners from CGIAR centres, national agricultural research systems and breeding networks ensure that these innovations are validated in real-world breeding programmes and can deliver impact for farmers worldwide.