The National, All-crops Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee will be a forum for leadership regarding issues, problems, and opportunities of long-term strategic importance to the contribution of plant breeding to national goals. The committee will create the only regular opportunity to provide such leadership across all crops. The nature of plant breeding as an integrative discipline par excellence will be reflected in multidisciplinary committee membership. The past decade has brought major changes in the U.S. national plant breeding investment. In order for administrators and other decisionmakers to understand the implications of the changes and respond most effectively for the future, there is need for a clear analysis of the role of plant breeding for meeting national goals. Although recent changes in investment are the impetus for this committee, the need to articulate the role of plant breeding in meeting national goals is likely to be on-going, regardless of immediate circumstances. This presentation will describe recent progress on organizing this committee, and will ask all plant breeders to begin thinking about the questions to be addressed at the upcoming national workshop.