Global Biotechnology Symposium; Agricultural Biotech for a Better World

Aug 14, 2026

By Kelly Zarka and Jan Fierro et.al

Michigan State University recently hosted the Global Biotechnology Symposium; Agricultural Biotech for a Better World bringing together over 90 agricultural stakeholders, regulators, policymakers, research scientists, and international development professionals from 19 countries to explore global perspectives in agricultural genetic engineering.

The symposium opened at the MSU Henry Center for Executive Development with welcome greetings from MSU administration and a keynote address from Lawrence Kent, Senior Program Officer of the Gates Foundation, a leader in global agri-biotechnology funding.

Dr. Karim Maredia, Associate Dean and Director of the World Agriculture Center within MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR), and his team organized the symposium which included a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the annual summer International Agricultural Biotechnology, Biosafety, and Technology Transfer Short Course offered through CANR. Since its inception, the course has hosted attendees from 97 countries. PSM’s Professor Emeritus in International Agronomy, Dr. Russ Freed recognized the significance of Dr. Maredia’s global contributions to agricultural biotechnology over the last quarter century during the symposium’s reception and PSM’s Dr. David Douches, Dr. Cholani Weebadde, Dr. Christy Sprague and Ms. Kelly Zarka were honored as invaluable resources and course contributors throughout the program’s 25 years.

The symposium focused on topics impacting global agricultural biotechnology which include science and innovation, policy and regulations, technology transfer, commercialization, seed systems, international trade, public acceptance, capacity building, communication, education and training.

Source : msu.edu

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids