b'VIVA LA EVOLUCIN!Five of our 2019 Giants of the Industry give their take on where the industry is headed as major change is on the horizon.Marc ZienkiewiczALTHOUGH GHANAis 11,000 kilometres as the crow flies from Kofi Agblors current home of Edmonton, Alta., it was his childhood in the West African country that made him the man he is today.More specifically, it was his mom who he says molded him into the leader he has become.My dad died when I was young. She impressed on me the value of hard work. There wasnt enough farmland left for my family in Ghana to allow me to get into that line of work. She made sure I understood that education was the only way out for me, says Agblor, who for eight years served as managing director of the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan.I saw my mothers struggles and saw how her life improved when I introduced a new technology for rice farming. Since I left Ghana I have been relent-lessnothing is good enough. Good is the enemy of better. You have to continuously improvetake what others see as impossible and show it can be done.Agblor and the CDC have certainly shown what can be accomplished through creative thinking and hard work.The CDC is up to 475 varieties introduced in a range of crops. Its gone from 9% market share in wheat to close to 30%. The private sector looks to [the CDC] as a real authority on breeding, which for a public institution is a major accomplishment, he says.For Agblor, that push to innovate applies to the Canadian seed industry as a whole. As the Seed Synergy project forges ahead to create a next-generation seed regulatory system for the country, he sees some chal-lenges ahead.4GERMINATION.CA JANUARY 2020'