b'BOLSTERING BREEDERS THROUGH TRAINING Valerio Hoyos-Villegas responds toIN 2019,Germination put out the call to Canadian plant breeders to answer a simple question: if you had $10 mil-our challenge and tells us what hedlion, what would you do to help the world?With the help of the Borlaug Training Foundation, we do for the plant breeding world if heare taking this opportunity to highlight the first in what had $10 million to make it a betterwill be an ongoing series of profiles showcasing Canadian breeders and their big idea for what they would do if they place.had millions to help make a better world through plant breeding.Marc Zienkiewicz Valerio Hoyos-Villegas is currently an assistant pro-fessor in plant breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Science at McGill University in Montreal, Que. He obtained his masters in crop, insect and microbial sciences from the University of Missouri in 2011 and his PhD in plant breeding, genetics and biotechnology from Michigan State University in 2015. Between 2015 and 2019, he held an appointment as scientist in forage breeding and genetics in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2019, he joined the Department of Plant Science at McGill University, where he holds a research and teaching appointment.His idea? To use $10 million to create an endowment for research and training for ag scientists in the develop-ing world.Marc Zienkiewicz: Tell us about yourself and how/why you got into plant breeding.Valerio Hoyos-Villegas: I grew up farming. I also worked at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and undertook maize breeding in Colombia with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) program. I was impressed by the impact this 40GERMINATION.CA JANUARY 2020'