24 / SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2017 As for her own career, Luby says what she wants most to accomplish is to help people understand how plant breeding connects with the food system, and how this impacts us on a daily basis. “[This includes] everything from the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, and our fuel, and how plant breeding plays a role in all of this. I like coming up with applied solutions in the research we are doing and the academic thinking we are doing to affect real world change.” Dr. Miguel Rapela is CEO of the Argentine Seed Association (ASA). In this role, he continues to stress that plant breeding innovation is of interest to large areas around the world. “The stage is now completely differ- ent as the new techniques are easy to use and quite cost-effective,” he says. “[There are] three issues—the technical aspect, the regulatory aspect, and the access aspect. We have to educate everyone.” Dr. Rapela also says these new techniques will not be regulated, so it’s important for regulators to know how to identify them. “The problem with the new breeding techniques is that we have to develop what a GMO is and what is not. GMOs are regulated and non-GMOs are not. We have to build a new definition and new concepts.” Dr. Rapela says his country, Argentina, was the first to adapt regulations related to these new techniques. “We’re trying to build unified criteria for all countries to understand what the new products are and what should be regulated.” Syngenta, a large agriculture company with a presence in more than 90 counties, is on a mission to improve food security by enabling farmers worldwide make better use of available resources. Ioana Tudor, Syngenta’s global head of seed care, says in its effort to continue to get the word out, the company’s strategic partnership with the Seed Association of the Americas (SAA) provides a great plat- form to bring seed companies across the Americas together. “For us in seed treatments, this is really important. It gives an opportunity for best practice exchange in critical areas, such as training, stewardship, operator train- ing, and also communication and resist- ance management. When we launch new agribusiness firm that provides merger and acquisition advisory services to pri- vate companies, public companies, and private equity firms. He says there has been—and will continue to be—a lot of changes in the seed industry. With Donald Trump as president, the seed industry may see looser regula- tions. He also says there have been many changes with respect to mergers and acquisitions. “It’s no secret that we are in a chal- lenging commodity environment and [we are seeing spending] pulled back by farmers. That’s what’s driving most of the mergers and acquisitions—the need for cost savings because we cannot keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing. There will be a lot of cuts for the industry unfortunately.” Goodbar predicts many spin-outs from large mergers, where it becomes, “We need to sell these two lines of vegetable seed. Who can help us do this and find the right home? That’s where I’ll probably come in and be active over the next couple of years.” And, he also says there will be new players in the buyer tech arena. “It’s not just the big companies that are coming up with trades. There are start-ups, and the Chinese are coming in with trades. The folks who have been working on conventional breeding will be in good shape.” When asked to cite areas of concern, Goodbar says, “There’s a lot of opportu- nity to create value assuming the farmer is always going to pay for that value. There’s precision ag, and a lot of value to be added by giving information to the farmer. The tough part is that the farmer/ vendor doesn’t want to pay for that infor- mation. He wants it for free.” He says the first generations of trade were very binary, where things were easy to identify and easy to value. “The things that become more agro- nomically nuanced become tougher to value and tougher to carry out. That is where it is a challenging environment. The retail guys who have recognized that they are—in essence— distributors of traits and genetics, and are set up to be focused on low-cost production and taking care of the customer, will be fine. They will see increases, as the big guys lay people off and combine territories.” SW 50% of the world’s food is produced by three countries—the U.S., Argentina, and Brazil. 9 billion. The forecasted global population by 2050. 1/3 There are one-third less plant breeders in Australia as compared to 20 years ago. products, what a perfect place to intro- duce new technologies, especially when we can have customers from countries that have experienced our products share their perspective with customers from countries where we are just getting ready for our launch.” At SAA, registration and product development remain a big topic of dis- cussion. When asked where Syngenta is focusing its resources, Tudor replies, “I always get the question of what my per- spective is on industry consolidation? Of course, this keeps regulators very busy. Syngenta will continue to do what we do best—that is, bring innovation and put it in the hands of the growers. The area I have heard concerns about is in the resistance management space, and how can we can preserve the life of those technologies. From a seed treatment perspective, we believe we can have a very strong contri- bution because we can be a new mode of action tool—as part of resistance man- agement—and together work with seed companies to put together a comprehen- sive resistance plan.” At present, Syngenta is expanding its seed institute in Mexico, which it also did in both Singapore and Minnesota in 2016. In 2017, another seed care institute was opened in central Russia. Mergers and Acquisitions William Goodbar is president of the Goodbar Group, a New Jersey-based