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Dep. of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871 Frederiksberg, Denmark
* Corresponding author (sba{at}life.ku.dk).
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Abbreviations: BOVA University, The Baltic Forestry, Veterinary, and Agricultural university network • NOVA University, The Nordic Forestry, Veterinary, and Agricultural university network
Received for publication October 5, 2007.
Dep. of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871 Frederiksberg, Denmark
* Corresponding author (sba{at}life.ku.dk).
The NOVA university network consists of a collaboration between agriculture-related institutions in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark with the goal of supporting veterinary, forestry, and agricultural education. The plant breeding part of these activities was already initiated with joint Ph.D. courses in 1975 and also includes Baltic institutions from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania since 1993. The joint courses and other network activities are a means of maintaining a true plant breeding identity in the geographical area while rapid changes take place within the agricultural industry, university curricula, and students' perception of the issue.
Abbreviations: BOVA University, The Baltic Forestry, Veterinary, and Agricultural university network • NOVA University, The Nordic Forestry, Veterinary, and Agricultural university network
The Nordic Forestry, Veterinary, and Agricultural (NOVA) university network was established in 1995 in an attempt to strengthen collaboration among the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark) within veterinary, forestry, and agricultural university education (Wålstedt, 2007) (Table 1 ). To understand the impact of this initiative within the five Nordic countries on education in plant breeding, some background knowledge is useful.
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200 million. This European area of education is strongly influenced by the wide diversity in language and culture both between and within the 25 member states of the European community. Only 10 yr ago heated discussions on the most suitable common language for meetings and information were frequent, but gradually the situation has changed to allow English for general communication. The efforts to make education transparent, comparable, and interchangeable between member countries and third parties are described in the Bologna agreement (Einem et al., 1999) and are an ongoing process.
Cultural differences are much smaller within the Nordic countries, with quite similar languages except for Finnish. Educational exchanges in principle are easy in most situations, but barriers of local languages are still serious enough to prefer English in many cases. Luckily, English is widely used in the region and communication is generally not a problem at the university level.
Agricultural business varies considerably within the Nordic region. Denmark and the southern part of Sweden are fertile major agricultural areas with large scale wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), grassland, and horticultural production in competitive economies. In the remaining parts of Sweden and in Norway and Finland, forestry is much more dominant, with less competitive agriculture. Agriculture in Iceland mainly consists of grasslands. The southern agriculturally fertile parts of the Nordic region are in fierce competition with highly productive agricultural areas in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and United Kingdom. In these areas, major crops also include corn (Zea mays L.), which is mainly absent in the Nordic countries because of the short season and lower temperatures.
Structural development of agriculture in the region shows the global trends toward larger and more specialized establishments, with the stronger concentration in size and specialization in the southern productive areas. Modern efficiency in agricultural production has led to the situation where only a small fraction of the population is directly involved in agriculture, which has a strong impact on basic interest and support for such operations in society. While most students in agricultural universities some 30 yr ago had some connection to agriculture, such backgrounds are now rare. This development, in turn, introduces new pedagogical challenges to university agricultural education in the area as well as radical changes to the curriculum taught. A puzzling result of the speedy structural development toward large specialized productions, particularly in the more productive areas like Denmark and southern Sweden, is that knowledge and positive attitude to the industry in such areas may be weaker than in the less competitive agricultural regions.
The general trends toward concentration also affect plant breeding organization in the area. The traditionally strong public program in breeding in Norway, Sweden, and Finland have been much reduced leaving most of the initiative to private companies. In Sweden the breeding of most species has been concentrated to Svaløf Weibulls, with the exception of sugar beet breeding, which is performed by the Hilleshög station of Syngenta AG. In Norway and Finland, virtually all plant breeding has been concentrated in one company in each country, Graminor and Boreal, respectively. In Denmark, a number of companies are operating, with the major one being DLF-Trifolium in turf and forage grasses owned by Danish seed producers. Four companies are owned by larger organizations: Sejet PlantBreeding (wheat and barley) owned by the major Danish feed company DLG, Danisco Seed (sugar beets) owned by the major Danish food company DANISCO, Syngenta Dæhnfeldt (vegetables) owned by Syngenta AG, and Sakata Ornamental Europe (ornamentals) owned by Sakata. Additionally three companies, Pajbjerg and Abed (wheat and barley), and LKF Vandel (potatoes [Solanum tuberosum L.]), are driven by special foundations in Denmark (Table 2 ).
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Since 1993 the plant breeding network has expanded collaboration to arrange their Ph.D. courses in integrated collaboration with the Baltic Forestry, Veterinary, and Agricultural University (BOVA) network comprising universities within agriculture, forestry, and veterinary sciences of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Financing was obtained first from the NOVA university network and, subsequently, from various other sources (Elmet et al., 2000). During recent years students from northwestern Russia (Saint Petersburg area) have been included in these Ph.D. programs (Table 3 ).
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Attempts to transfer the success of the Ph.D. courses in the NOVA university network to establish common M.Sc. courses in the Nordic region have proven more difficult. Overall, there are four to five such programs established or under development, with agroecology and aquaculture as the most developed areas. Such programs are competing with the Erasmus exchange program for student's interest. But more seriously, it has become clear that university students are much less mobile during their study time than was previously believed. A joint Swedish–Danish B.S. and M.Sc. program in horticulture recently has faced serious problems moving students between Copenhagen and the nearby Alnarp, which is only one hour away. The strengthening of the scientific and teaching environment through such joining of forces is not always obvious for students to compensate for the extra nuisance of displacement.
It may well be that the idea of universities without walls should place less emphasis on student mobility and more on removing walls between traditional subdivisions of science. In the case of plant breeding in the Nordic area it will be hard to see how even a single well-coordinated plant breeding education program could find enough positions for its students in the region to maintain a critical mass. In contrast the market for more basic plant science students may be large enough to support several such educational centers in the future. Plant breeding education and research will have to be integrated entities in such activities.
Received for publication October 5, 2007.
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