DECEMBER 2017 SEEDWORLD.COM / 23 Better 55% Organic produce is __ for health than conventionally grown produce Neither better nor worse 41% Worse 3% No answer 1% GM foods are __ for health than non-GM foods Worse 39% Neither better nor worse 48% Better 10% No answer 3% Source: Pew Research MOST AMERICANS SEE HEALTH BENEFITS IN ORGANICS; A SIZEABLE MINORITY SEE HEALTH RISKS IN GM FOODS % of U.S. adults who say the following... that helped us with contacts and the training that we do. The concept was to go there and form a participatory plant breeding model where farmers come and we teach them how to do the plant breeding. The students also helped deliver training to the farmers. There was a great bridging of the gap between sci- entists and farmers.” By developing better relationships, Leddin says they will have a better outtake of the varieties to develop in the future. “For me it’s an amazing experience to go to all of these places and see the adventures you can have as a plant breeder. When I started, I wanted to be the Indiana Jones of the plant breeding world. You can do it if you have the pas- sion and the drive.” As fulfilling as this can be, he says, there still remains a large decrease in the number of people who study plant breeding. In Australia, for example, there are one-third less plant breeders than 20 years ago. “I’m really out there looking for a call for arms for the development of plant breeding to see if people can come out to volunteer,” says Leddin. “This is about transferring the knowledge we have about plant breeding to the people on the ground. It’s also about young people.” The Bigger Picture Claire Luby is a perfect example of the younger generation who has chosen plant breeding as a career. A recent PhD graduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she focused her research on carrot genetic diversity and intellectual property. Luby continues to pursue this research at the university—along with many other projects—including working with a Native American tribe in Wisconsin on seed production, and serving as executive director of Open Source Seeds. “Open Source Seeds is an open source system for plant variety releases, kind of like open source software,” she explains. “The initiative is still in its infancy, but this is something to keep your eye on. I've done a lot of interdisciplinary work and have the opportunity to travel inter- nationally to see how things are done in different places, and think about how you synthesize that in a systems approach to a specific plant breeding problem. That is, looking at the bigger picture and seeing how you can apply it.” Luby was introduced to plant breeding at a very young age from her father, who is s a plant breeder at the University of Minnesota. Her mother is in horticulture. “Watching my parents navigate their careers in academia has been influential,” she says. Another mentor in her life is Tom Stearns, president of High Mowing Organic Seeds, who started growing organic seeds for sale as a hobby before he left college. Today, it is a $1.6 million business with 30 employees, operating out of a 13,000-square-foot facility in Wolcott, Vermont. “I was introduced to him early on in my graduate career. He brings enthusiasm to everything seed related,” says Luby. “The single job of a seed care institute is to ensure that the product does what it is expected to do in the hands of our customers.” — Ioana Tudor