The Truth About Farmers

Jan 27, 2017

By Samuel L. Pardue

It is often said that farmers are faithful, optimistic people. It takes a special kind of person to put a seed in the ground, help birth a calf or watch a chick hatch from an egg – to knowingly start down the path to turn that small beginning into food and fiber for the world.

This week we held our annual Georgia Ag Forecast seminars across the state. This long-running partnership between the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Georgia Farm Bureau, Farm Credit of Southwest Georgia and Georgia Department of Agriculture, with support from Georgia Agribusiness Council, is part of our commitment to get the best information from the university to farmers, ranchers and green industry producers so they can make the best planning, planting and production decisions.

Farming is always an uncertain enterprise. The year past was and the year ahead will be no different. Even with the best available research in hand for planning, farmers find themselves at the mercy of the weather, the markets and nature. This year alone, our farmers faced low commodity prices, a hurricane and severe drought.

And then there’s the ever-changing policy element to factor in.

In the year ahead, Congress will begin to hammer out a new national farm bill that will guide our agricultural policy for the next five years. It’s a daunting task that involves everything from crop insurance to commodity programs, from rural development to the nation’s nutrition programs.

This year, Georgia is fortunate to have tremendous leaders in Washington in key positions. President Donald Trump named former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue as his secretary of agriculture nominee. U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton, is chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy, and Credit. U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Columbus, was named ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. Former Georgia Farm Bureau President Zippy Duval is now president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

In addition, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, serves on the Senate agriculture committee and U.S. Reps. David Scott, D-Smyrna, and Rick Allen, R-Augusta, serve on the House agriculture committee. These appointments prove that Georgia is fertile ground for growing strong national leaders in agriculture.

UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has worked hand in hand with these leaders for many years to ensure that Georgia agriculture continues to be a major part of the U.S. food system, providing the needed research and education to keep our industry strong and our food supply secure.

While nature and economics will always be fickle, our commitment to Georgia’s faithful farmers remains strong. The forecast is indeed bright.

Source: uga.edu

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.”