Following APSA’s recent announcement and recognition of the 2021 most influential seed scientists in the Asia-Pacific (see end info for link), Asian Seed reached out to the five awardees for interviews to find out more about what drives them. These interviews will be published on APSA’s website on a weekly basis throughout the month of December.
This week’s interview features Dr. Conrado Balatero from East West Seed Inc (The Philippines) – South East Asia sub-region, who was named the 2021 most influential plant breeding researcher for horticulture crops (private sector) in the Asia-Pacific. Dr. Conrado is recognized for his work, role and contribution as a highly-accomplished horticulture crop breeder and researcher, and specifically for developing quality seeds of crop varieties that offer high nutritional and economic value to farmers. These include a number of onion, bitter gourd, tomato, pumpkin, melon, wax gourd, papaya and okra varieties, which have had a significant commercial impact, and continue to be popular amongst growers in many countries throughout the region. Full details about Dr. Conrado, his accomplishments and the award are covered in the announcement story, which is linked to at the end of the following interview:
The most important thing that motivates me at work is that great feeling that I am not just coming for work to earn a living to support my family, but that I am part of the bigger mission to help improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers by giving them the opportunity to earn more income from the use of improved varieties. As a plant breeder/scientist, part of my routine is to regularly visit and interact with both subsistence and professional farmers. And during these interactions, it is very fulfilling and motivating to hear farmers’ testimonies on how improved varieties changed their lives and provided them the opportunity to send their children to school, provide them with decent shelter and give them extra income to even acquire more assets like land and farming machinery. But you see, it’s not always hearing happy stories. I also see how farmers’ fields are devastated by pests and diseases, challenged by extremes of heat, lack of water or stressed because of water logging. And these situations even push me and my team to work harder because the mission is not over. There is no such thing as a “perfect variety”, hence, we have to keep thinking and stretching our creativity to match the evolving needs of our farmers and also other vital customers like traders and consumers.
One of the biggest challenges we have right now is climate change. Our farming communities experience significant drop or loss of their income due to higher incidence and/or emergence of new insect pests and diseases, insufficient moisture (drought), warmer temperatures or excess of moisture and high humidity during the monsoon months. These are complex problems that would require innovations in the way we breed new varieties. We also have growing challenges in germplasm access and increasing restrictions in seed movement due to more complex phytosanitary regulations. All of these would hamper progress in breeding.
On the opportunities side, I see greater opportunities of enabling tools such as gene editing technologies, optimum application of functional genomics and bioinformatics, use of AI and digital technology (e.g. high throughput phenotyping) to create/discover novel traits or tap existing genes to develop new breeds of crops that will minimize the impact of this climate change. This covid-19 pandemic also clearly demonstrated changing trends in consumers’ preference for convenience and online shopping – and these trends present opportunities to breed for consumer-friendly traits.
For the next generation of plant breeders/researchers, my advice to them is to openly embrace and learn these new emerging technologies but at the same time stay connected with the farmers in order to understand their needs. The goal is to be able to effectively “connect the dots” between new technologies and farmers’ needs. The next generation breeder/researcher should be more curious, ask as many questions as possible, and must acknowledge that gone are the days when variety development is solely in the hands of the breeder. Future breeders/researchers must acknowledge that cross-functional teamwork is a very essential ingredient for success in the future.
I greatly value teamwork. So I treasured Henry Ford’s quotation: “Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”. For me this is the very foundation of success in every organization. And it is the same thing with breeding new varieties. It sounds easy and simple, but actually it can be challenging. One of us may have a brilliant idea, but without the support of our colleagues and partners, such a brilliant idea may not come to fruition.
Read more about Dr. Conrado and the other awardees and their accomplishments in our story here. See also, full interview with Dr. Krishna Reddy of ICAR here and Dr. Manuel Logroño here, and Dr. Sharan Angadi here