b'Behind Johnsons farm stands a house he built from sandstonethe same material a nearby bird used to construct its nest. I had to ask myself, he laughs, whos teaching who?Etched above his fields is a petroglyph that serves as his guiding star. It shows a farmer bent with a planting stick, a lineOver 340 people attended this years National Association for Plant of people holding hands. TheBreeding meeting in Kona, Hawaii.path abruptly endsonly to reconnect with another. Thats us, Johnson says. If we hold onto our valuesour knowledgewe continue. That rock is our roadmap for survival.Restoring the Past to Secure the FutureThat roadmap isnt just metaphorical. Its becoming a shared vision amongof ancient Austronesian migration routes, he urged educators, farmers, researchers, and Indigenous knowledge-keepersattendees to rethink what innovation truly means.across the Pacific. Hawaii, like northern Arizona, holds its own stories ofOur ancestors navigated the largest ocean on the resilienceof ecosystems and communities once deeply aligned. planet using constellations, Winter said. That wasnt Bruce Matthews, long-time educator and now county administra- just seafaring. It was systems thinkingan under-tor at the University of Hawaii, sees these stories in the landscape. Thestanding that we are part of, not separate from, the University of Hawaii has experiment stations across the islands, he says.natural world.Theyre not just relicstheyre living laboratories of adaptation. At the Heeia National Estuarine Research Reserve, These stations are part of an agricultural legacy stretching back overWinter draws from a worldview in which land and sea, a century. The College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources forest and reef, human and crop are one. He points to founded in 1909once played a global role in crop innovation, fromthe Ahupuaa systemtraditional land divisions that sugarcane to rice. Today, while the number of professional breeders hasextended from mountain tops to coral reefsnot as dwindled, Matthews sees new potentialnot just in agricultural sciencehistorical footnotes but as ecological blueprints.students, but in young people from all backgrounds. When you live as part of a system, he explains, My own son worked for a seed company, he says. He was a financeyou take care of that system. Because its part of you.major, but those mornings in the fieldand the business forecasting in theTo emphasize the stakes, Winter turned to science afternoonused every skill he had. fiction. Holding up images from Star Wars, he con-Matthews doesnt gloss over the challenges: germplasm loss, shrinkingtrasted Coruscanta planet consumed by concrete public funding, polarizing biotech debates. But in the overlap between sci-with Yavin 4, lush and alive. Which trajectory are we ence and society, he sees promise. A chance to realign not just crops, buton? he asked. And which star do we want to follow?values. For Native Hawaiians, crops like kalo (taro), ulu (breadfruit), and k (sugarcane) are more than foodA Star Map for the Future theyre family. Taro, for instance, appears in Hawaiian That realignment runs deep for Kawika Winter, a biocultural ecologist whogenealogy as the elder sibling of humanity. Every culti-views the past as both compass and call to action. Standing before a mapvar had a name, a purpose, a story.SEPTEMBER 2025SEEDWORLD.COM /39'