b'INTERNATIONAL AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENTMentors Can Come from AnywhereSEEING THATthis issue of Seed World revolvesWhen I finished my masters in plant breeding I felt around mentors in the seed industry, I thought it mightthat due to the funding I received from Dairy Australia be an opportunity to let you know how I got interestedI should find a plant breeding job in Australia. Australia in seed and plant breeding. was experiencing climate change at a much more rapid I grew up on a dairy farm in South-Easternrate than other countries where we were receiving vari-Australia. I always wanted to be a vet, so I started uni- eties from so the foundations were right for Australia versity in Melbourne with the aim to become one. Onto do breeding in this space. I searched hard for a com-this journey, I found my life was to go down a differ- pany that wanted to do forage breeding in Australia, ent path and that is where I found my passion in plantbut there were none. I ended up doing an agronomy breeding. The mystery of life is to work out what wejob with a rural store and this was vital in making a ANTHONY LEDDINwere sent here on this earth to do and plant breedingcloser link to farmers and what their needs were out in Inspired afterwas for me. I had many mentors in those universitythe field, mentored by my manager John Lynch.reading Thedays that helped me on this journey and their guidanceI then did other agronomy roles with companies in Coming Famine,was to do a postgraduate in plant breeding. So, whentrials research and seed production. Five years later this AustralianI completed university, I spent a year as a volunteerI was lucky to stumble across another mentor in my plant breeder setteaching agriculture in Samoa. Another passion oflife as a plant breeder in Donald Coles from Valley out to make amine which was working in developing countries, and ISeeds, the current president of the International Seed difference. Plantmerged these two passions of mine together to createFederation. He had a strong belief that Australia farm-Breeders WithoutPlant Breeders Without Borders (PBWOB), which I willers needed forage breeding in Australia to help with Borders encouragesexplain how that happened later in the story. adaptation to climate change. I have worked now plant breeders andI completed a masters in plant breeders in foragesas a forage breeder for Valley Seeds for 14 years. In students to volunteerat the Department of Agriculture in Hamilton, Victoria,that time, I have also continued my volunteer work their time for inter- funded by the Dairy Australia. During this study Iin developing countries overseas, pursuing the idea national breedingwas able to go travel to the Eucarpia forage breed- of PBWOB. It was with the help of mentors from The projects. ers conference in Germany, and this was a highlightCrawford fund here in Australia such as Denis Blight in my studies. It was there I got to meet some of mythat led to a meeting with Bayer who is now sponsor-plant breeder heros face to face. People like Ulriching the projects with PBWOB through the support Posselt, Pete Wilkins and Mike Casler. I used to readof mentors such as Naomi Stevens here in Bayer scientific papers from these authors and they wereAustralia. what inspired me to work hard to getting to the goal toMany mentors have come from different parts of becoming a forage breeder. my lives, not just plant breeders, but they make up It was at this conference that the seed of PBWOBwho you are. I now mentor a graduate student, Sarah germinated. A lot of these plant breeder heroes ofMcMaster, who traveled with me under a scholarship mine were retiring and there wasnt the next gen- to the PBWOB project in Nepal in 2018.She is already eration of younger plant breeders coming throughbetter at me in many different aspects of plant breed-that they could pass their knowledge onto. This wasing, and I hope that one day she will be able to pass on especially important with the onset of climate changethat passion for plant breeding onto the next genera-where breeding is essential to maintaining and increas- tion, as it was handed down from the first farmers that ing yields in plants to feed a worlds population of closebegan breeding many thousands of years ago. SWto 10 billion people by 2050.62/ SEEDWORLD.COMSEPTEMBER 2021'