Reinvigorating plant breeding to meet the challenges of food production in the 21st century

Systematic plant breeding started following the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of inheritance and has contributed greatly to the improvement of productivity and nutritional quality of crops. Nearly 50% of the increase in food production achieved during the past 50 years is attributed to plant breeding. Breeding improvements are going to be critical for achieving productivity improvement in a sustained manner for meeting the food demands of growing population. There is, however, a concern globally that plant breeding as a discipline and career is losing ground and consequently trained plant breeders are becoming rare. In this presentation, we examine the factors that appear to have contributed to this decline and suggest ways to rejuvenate plant breeding to respond to the new challenges. We stress the need for a comprehensive effort aimed at all levels starting from attracting young talent to take up plant breeding as a challenging and paying career, improving teaching and training, enhancing funding, to harmonizing public-private partnerships for revitalizing plant breeding.