Dr. Taryono, lecturer at the UGM Faculty of Agriculture and researcher of the Gamagora rice variety, was inaugurated as a professor of food crop breeding on Tuesday, Jul. 16, 2024, in the Senate Hall, UGM Central Office.
During the inauguration ceremony, he delivered a speech titled “Development of Participatory Breeding to Support National Food Independence.”
In his speech, Professor Taryono explained that plant breeding activities are based on scientific knowledge but have long been considered inefficient due to the time, effort, and cost required.
As a result, numerous technological innovations have been made to make plant breeding activities more efficient.
Despite its inefficiency, researchers are required to produce climate-friendly superior varieties quickly and inexpensively.
Therefore, breeders must intelligently utilize all technological innovations in biology and other fields.
Professor Taryono and his team’s experience developing the new Gamagora 7 rice variety revealed that screening was the most time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly stage.
“Therefore, technological development should be more focused on accelerating the screening process through genetic engineering technologies and in vitro techniques,” he stated.
Professor Taryono acknowledged that rapid breeding efforts and shorter breeding cycles can be the simplest and most effective approach to developing new varieties.
Supported by technological innovations, superior varieties can be produced more quickly, distinguished by non-molecular and molecular technologies.
However, he added that it is equally important that plant genetic resources for food and agriculture strongly support plant breeding activities.
The preservation of plant genetic resources, including wild relatives, farmer varieties (landraces), local varieties, and superior varieties, is crucial and should be maintained in their original environments and gene banks, depending on their propagation characteristics.
He emphasized that UGM has long managed both seed and field gene banks. The seed gene bank stores orthodox seeds of food and horticultural crops such as rice, corn, soybeans, mung beans, long beans, winged beans, and pumpkins.
UGM continues its efforts to preserve and utilize plant genetic resources to support food independence programs. Their existence in nature is threatened by agricultural development, population growth, and climate change.
“The development of genetic material is carried out as a source of resilience against biological and environmental stress, quality improvement, the search for male sterility for hybrid variety development, and the creation of new varieties by transferring desired traits from various genetic resources to superior varieties,” he said.
Regarding national food issues, Professor Taryono suggested decentralization in regions to strengthen local food systems based on local food sources.
Until now, the existence of Regional Plant Genetic Resources Commissions (Komda Plasma Nutfah) has supported local governments in preserving plant genetic resources, but these commissions have not been functioning as expected.
On this occasion, he proposed reactivating the Komda Plasma Nutfah to preserve and utilize plant genetic resources through participatory breeding activities.
“Participatory breeding is highly recommended as an approach to achieving food independence in the future, given the many challenges that must be faced,” he concluded.
In her remarks, Rector of Universitas Gadjah Mada Professor Ova Emilia stated that Professor Taryono is one of the 452 active professors at UGM, one of the 26 active professors in the Faculty of Agriculture, and one of the 73 professors the faculty has ever had.
Author: Gusti Grehenson
Post-editor: Lintang
Photographer: Firsto