SUCCESSION PLANNING IN THE WORLD OF RESEARCH

There’s been a lot of talk about succession planning in agriculture recently. Succession planning is just as important in research.

Here’s an example. Surya Acharya started with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in 1989. He and his teammates developed two new cicer milkvetch varieties (AC Oxley II and AC Veldt), two sainfoins (AAC Mountainview and AAC Glenview), five new orchardgrasses (Kayak, Greenview, Chilliwack-VR, Haida-VR and Cheam-VR), ACE-1 perennial cereal rye and Tristar fenugreek, nine native grass varieties and five new alfalfas (AC Blue J, AC Longview, AC Dalton, AAC Bridgeview and AAC Meadowview). In 2021, Surya received the BCRC’s Canadian Beef Industry Award for Outstanding Research and Innovation due to his dedication to applied producer-focused research and extension.