Students Present Seed Science Foundation Challenge Reports

The Seed Science Foundation (SSF) brought two PhD students to ASTA’s CSS & Seed Expo 2021 to share their final reports from their participation in the annual Seed Science Challenge. This year’s challenge was to participate in the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit by convening an Independent Food Systems Summit Dialogue with a community that is important to the student. To help them be successful, participating students were matched with a mentor from the seed industry.

The two students who completed the challenge were Marlie Lukach, PhD Student in Plant Breeding & Genetics at Cornell University and Sandeep Chapagain, PhD Student in Plant Breeding & Genetics at Louisiana State University.

Lukach held her dialogue at the Ithaca (New York) Farmers Market which was publicized to a range of stakeholders including university professors, students, local schools, NGOs and farmers. Approximately 150 people participated in a conversation about finding or growing diverse produce, as well as many people wanting to learn more about including unfamiliar produce into their diets. Through these discussions, Lukach found that there is a need for accessible, diverse produce within the Greater Ithaca area, New York state, and across the United States. Other findings included: a need for more information on common names of produce across cultures; a need for more affordable produce; and a desire for a variety of available seeds in addition to plants for planting.

Chapagain held his dialogue at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, LA which was publicized to faculty and students in the LSU School of Plant, Environmental, and Soil Sciences. Forty people participated in the conversation about seed system components including seed development, management and distribution. Primary outcomes of this independent dialogue were: that research and extension play an integral role in sustainable seed systems; that participatory breeding and seed sharing is an important concept to consider; paying for seed can be sustainable and; intellectual property protection is essential to promote innovation.

The mission of the SSF is to address seed and plant science challenges and encourage plant breeding education and seed research in support of the ever-changing needs of the global seed industry. The SSF also seeks to provide insight and recommend solutions that enable the U.S. seed industry to function with global effectiveness.