Developing future leaders for agriculture

Dec 24, 2014

Opportunity for people to learn how to make a difference within a community

By Shannon Little, University of Guelph Agricultural Communications Student, for Farms.com

Recruitment is underway for the next class of the Advanced Agricultural Leadership Program (AALP), an initiative designed to mould future leaders for Ontario’s agriculture and agri-food sectors and rural communities.

This program is delivered by the Rural Ontario Institute. It was originally developed to help rural community leaders acquire key leadership skills. It continues to develop and support both the leaders of today and tomorrow.

“AALP has helped me improve my leadership skills so I can face the challenges in the different industries as I interact with different geographies as well as different political sectors,” says, current participant Samantha Stevens.

AALP has been operating since 1985 to help current and emerging leaders build stronger relationships in the agriculture industry and shape the future of the Ontario agriculture and the agri-food industry. Participants’ involvement in this program provides them the opportunity to become more knowledgeable about the social and economic issues facing rural and urban Ontario.

This program is designed to inspire leaders so that they can take the knowledge and the skills they have learned from the program and their North American and international study tours to enhance and expand their networks across the agriculture, agri-food and rural sectors.

It is also an opportunity for people to learn how to make a difference within a community.

“Success is in its reputation,” said Stevens.

Term after term, people apply who care about the agriculture industry and want to improve their public speaking, project management and networking skills, as well as acquire a better understanding of e how the Ontario agricultural industry works. Further developing these skills will help improve the future of Ontario agriculture and the agri-food industry and rural communities across Ontario.

Recruitment is right around the corner. Those who want to improve their leadership and become an AGvocate (an advocate for agriculture) may want to consider AALP .

More information is available at http://www.aalp.on.ca/application.aspx

Shannon Little, lives on a cash crop farm in Monkton, Ontario, which also has a small trucking business. Shannon is studying in her third year at the University of Guelph, completing her Bachelor Degree in Ag. Honors. In her spare time, she enjoys horseback riding, participating in numerous community events, competitive plowing, as well as helping out around the family farm. With her family running a small trucking business, Shannon has had the opportunity to drive transport, which she plans to continue to do after completing her degree. This article is part of Shannon’s course work for the University of Guelph agricultural communications course, instructed by Prof. Owen Roberts.

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”