Minister Bibeau chairs FAO conference in Italy and strengthens links with our international partners

Jul 11, 2023

OTTAWA, ON, - The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food concluded her ministerial outreach to Italy today, where she chaired the biennial Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Conference, met with bilateral counterparts and with Italian businesses in the southern region of Puglia.

Minister Bibeau was the first woman to ever chair the FAO conference and the first Canadian to do it since 1997. This year's FAO theme was water resource management. Canada urged conference participants to leverage innovation and collaboration even more with farmers and stakeholders to better manage precious water resources to produce more food to feed the world.

In addition to presiding over the conference, Minister Bibeau met with Italian agri-food stakeholders, Canadian industry associations, and Canadians working at Rome-based international organizations and agencies. The Minister highlighted the strong economic ties and common values between Canada and Italy, especially the mutually beneficial trade in Canadian durum wheat, and how to increase trade and investments between Canada and Italy already benefitting under the Canada-EU Comprehensive and Economic Free Trade Agreement (CETA).

Minister Bibeau also met bilaterally with the Philippines, her international counterparts from Australia, Netherlands and Mexico, and Italy's Minister of Agriculture to reinforce Canada's commitment to deepening and diversifying agricultural trade; promoting Canadian agriculture and agri-food products; increasing the sustainability and innovation of agricultural production; and global food security.

On the sidelines of the FAO Conference, Minister Bibeau chaired a roundtable with women ministers and leaders working in the agriculture and agri-food sector, where they discussed ideas on advancing gender equality and ways to increase female leadership in the sector. This included the kinds of investments governments could make in order to have real and positive impacts—whether in innovation, digital infrastructure, or facilitating access to financing, training and agricultural land.

During her two days in Puglia, the Minister toured local farming operations, Italian milling and pasta companies to discuss ways of enhancing business ties with Canada and to promote sustainable and innovative Canadian agriculture. The Minister met with Andriani SpA located in Gravina in Puglia, a firm specializing in gluten-free products that will be locating its first North American production facility in London, Ontario. Minister Bibeau also met with officials from Candeal Commercio, an Italian miller and important buyer and processor of Canadian durum wheat. The Minister's meetings further included pasta producer, La Molisana, a large purchaser of Canadian grain that is used in products for their export markets, as well as Mulino Caputo, a world-renowned miller of specialty flours, and Amber Srl, which is an important trader of both durum and soft wheat.

Throughout her visit, Minister Bibeau reaffirmed Canada's commitment to remain a reliable source of safe, high-quality agriculture and agri-food products to the world, and shared Canada's views on the importance of achieving more sustainable, resilient and inclusive agri-food systems.

Source : Newswire.ca

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.”