A Step Sideways From the Green Revolution in the Light of the European Green Deal

The need for increasing the environmental friendliness of food systems is driving regulatory initiatives aimed at reducing the use of pesticides and supporting organic farming. This scenario is casting a shadow over the suitability of modern cultivars that-shaped by the Green Revolution-have lost competitiveness against weeds. In this context, reducing the use of herbicides could rapidly become a critical threat to food security. We combined global sensitivity analysis and simulation tools explicitly reproducing crop-weed interactions to show how breeding for rice ideotypes more competitive against weeds-for both organic and conventional farming-can counterbalance yield losses due to the partial shift towards organic agriculture. The analysis focused on the three top European rice producers (Italy, Spain and Greece) and considered multiple climate change scenarios. Our results demonstrate the potential of available genetic resources and model-based ideotype breeding to effectively support crop improvement when regulations and citizens' sensitivity to environmental issues evolve in the frame of global climatic changes.