Minister Bibeau in Italy for Food and Agriculture Organization conference, local outreach

Jun 30, 2023

Ottawa, ON – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, is in Italy to take part in the biennial conference of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). During her outreach, she will also work with stakeholders to advance Canadian agriculture and agri-food trade, and promote the safety and quality of Canadian exports.

Minister Bibeau is expected to be formally elected as Chair of the FAO conference on its first day. Minister Bibeau will be the first female agriculture minister to be in the role, and the first Canadian to chair since 1997. The Chair presides over the gathering of the full membership of the FAO, facilitating the exchange of views among all members as they work together towards global food security and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The full FAO membership convenes every 2 years. This year’s theme is water resource management, and the conference is taking place in Rome, from July 1 to 7.

While in Italy, Minister Bibeau will also take the opportunity to discuss Canadian agricultural opportunities with Italian agri-food stakeholders, including the mutual benefits of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). She will host a roundtable discussion with female leaders in agriculture and agri-food from around the world, meet with Canadian industry associations, and meet Italian businesses who use Canadian agriculture and agri-food products.

There will be opportunities on the margins of the FAO for Minister Bibeau to meet with counterparts from numerous other countries as well as with FAO officials to help push progress on global food security, enhance bilateral relations and trade opportunities, while working to resolve trade issues.

Source : Canada.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.”