Critics of organic agriculture claim it is too low-yieldingto be a viable alternative to conventional agriculture. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that poor performance is not an intrinsic property oforganic production, but rather the result of growing poorly adapted varieties.It is estimated that over 95% of organic agriculture is based on conventionally adapted varieties, even though the production environments found in organic vs. conventional farming systems are vastly different due to their distinctive management practices. Most notably, organic farmers have fewer inputs available than conventional growers to control their production environments. Breedingvarieties specifically adapted to the unique conditions of organic agriculture is critical for this sector to realize its full potential. This requires selection for traits such as:

•             Water useefficiency

•             Nutrientuse efficiency (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus)

•             Weedcompetitiveness

•             Toleranceof mechanical weed control

•             Pest/diseaseresistance

•             Earlymaturity (as a mechanism for avoidance of particular stresses)

•             Abioticstress tolerance (i.e. drought, salinity, etc.)

Currently, few breeding programs are directed at organicagriculture and until recently those that did address this sector havegenerally relied on indirect selection (i.e. selection in conventionalenvironments for traits considered important for organic agriculture). However,because the difference between organic and conventional environments is large,a given genotype may perform very differently in each environment due to aninteraction between genes and the environment. If this interaction is severeenough, an important trait required for the organic environment may not berevealed in the conventional environment, which can result in the selection ofpoorly adapted individuals. To ensure the most adapted varieties areidentified, advocates of organic breeding now promote the use of direct selection(i.e. selection in the target environment) for many agronomic traits.

There are many classical andmodern breeding techniques that can be utilized for crop improvement in organicagriculture despite the ban on genetically modified organisms. For instance,controlled crosses between individuals allow desirable genetic variation to berecombined and transferred to seed progeny via natural processes. Markerassisted selection can also be employed as a diagnostics tool to facilitateselection of progeny who possess the desired trait(s), greatly speeding up thebreeding process. This technique has proven particularly useful for theintrogression of resistance genes into new backgrounds, as well as theefficient selection of many resistance genes pyramided into a singleindividual. Unfortunately, molecular markers are not currently available formany important traits, especially complex ones controlled by many genes.