Q&A with Andy Higgins, CEO of International Fruit Genetics
March 24, 2022 | By TOM KARST
The Packer’s Tom Karst interviewed Andy Higgins, CEO of Bakersfield, Calif.-based IFG, in February about trends in grape variety breeding and new introductions from the company in recent years.
Higgins said that proprietary fruit breeders such as IFG, Sun World and others are increasingly important in new variety introduction.
“The levels of investment that are required to create a new variety are going to be increasing over time,” he said. “There are so many technologies that we can apply to our work. Something that used to take 20 years, we could probably do it in 10 years because of good molecular techniques. However, all of those techniques take time, resources and money, which the private programs are in a better position to fund and develop them (compared to) public programs.”
