b'THIS GLOBAL TEAM IS REPROGRAMMING AGRICULTUREWITH SONGS, SOIL AND SUPERCOMPUTERSFrom ancient petroglyphs to quantum phenotyping, theyre crafting a future where food has deeper rootsand attendees of the 2025 NAPB meeting heard the message loud and clear. Marc ZienkiewiczON THE HIGH, wind-scoured plateaus ofits nest. I had to ask myself, he laughs, northern Arizona, where rainfall is scarcewhos teaching who?and the soil seems to resist cultivation, aEtched above his fields is a petroglyph quiet agricultural miracle has persisted forthat serves as his guiding star. It shows over 3,000 years. In a place many woulda farmer bent with a planting stick, a deem uninhabitable, Hopi farmers haveline of people holding hands. The path coaxed corn, beans, squash, and melonsabruptly endsonly to reconnect with from the earthwithout irrigation, fer- another. Thats us, Johnson says. If tilizers, or machinery. Just knowledge. we hold onto our valuesour knowl-At the heart of this story is Dr.edgewe continue. That rock is our Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a Hopi dry- roadmap for survival.land farmer and professor of Indigenous resilience at the University of Arizona.Restoring the Past to Secure the FutureJohnson doesnt just study these ancientThat roadmap isnt just metaphorical. Its practiceshe lives them. Rooted inbecoming a shared vision among educa-both science and ceremony, his worktors, farmers, researchers, and Indigenous seeks not only to document but toMichael Kotutwa Johnson is a Hopi drylandknowledge-keepers across the Pacific. revitalize the bio-cultural knowledgefarmer and professor of Indigenous resilienceHawaii, like northern Arizona, holds its systems that have sustained his people forat the University of Arizona. Johnson doesntown stories of resilienceof ecosystems generations. just study these ancient practiceshe livesand communities once deeply aligned.At the 2025 National Association forthem. Dr. Bruce Matthews, long-time Plant Breeding (NAPB) conference ineducator and now county administrator Kona, Hawaii, Johnsons voice added aat the University of Hawaii, sees these powerful dimension to a meeting thatstories in the landscape. The University was less about pipelines and patents andof Hawaii has experiment stations more about perspectivesredefiningacross the islands, he says. Theyre not what plant breeding could and should be. just relicstheyre living laboratories I come from a place where we get sixof adaptation.to 10 inches of rain a year, Johnson toldThese stations are part of an agricul-the crowd. Yet weve been growing cropstural legacy stretching back over a cen-there for millennia. Without chemicals.tury. The College of Tropical Agriculture Without irrigation. Just by understand- and Human Resourcesfounded in ing our land and listening to it. 1909once played a global role in That listening is not just ecological,crop innovation, from sugarcane to rice. he explains. Its relational. Spiritual.Today, while the number of professional Cultural. Its encoded into stone and soil. breeders has dwindled, Matthews sees Behind Johnsons farm stands a houseKawika Winter, a Native Hawaiian bioculturalnew potentialnot just in agricultural he built from sandstonethe sameecologist who views the past as both compassscience students, but in young people material a nearby bird used to constructand call to action. from all backgrounds.20 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA JULY 2025'