Page 4 - Plant Canada 2024 Proceeding

PLANT CANADA 2024

Plant Canada President’s Message

Plants: Adapting to a Changing World is the eighth meeting of the Plant Canada-affiliated
Societies and Associations since our first gathering in London Ontario in 2000. The idea behind
Plant Canada, to periodically bring together the specialized disciplines represented by its
current seven Canadian member organizations, remains as relevant as it was back then.

This is an important and rewarding time to be a plant scientist. There is no question that our
knowledge and expertise will increasingly contribute to tackling current global challenges
associated with climate change and overpopulation, which extend to social injustice and political
instability. We have the capacity, for example, to harness and enhance the carbon capturing
capabilities of plants, mitigate losses from abiotic and biotic stress, and generate new crops and
cultivars that will produce more nutritious food, bio-products and medicines.

As scientists, we also need to adapt to a stunning array of technological advances that are
changing the way we conduct research, enabling us to uncover at unprecedented rates the
intricate mechanisms plants employ to optimize their success. At our disposal are continually
evolving genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic tools and databases. Who would
have thought the relative ease at which it is currently possible to edit genomes, visualize
dynamic processes in living plant cells, or to model protein structures with generative AI?

And yet, despite the obvious and urgent need for plant science to move to the forefront of
human endeavours, there are barriers. Increasingly, evidence-based scientific information is
taking a back seat to agendas of opinion, misinformation and conspiracy theories, resulting in
lackluster and often disturbing political outcomes. Climate change denial, anti-vaccination
debates and anti-GMO campaigns are obvious examples of the loss of trust in science by large
swathes of society. In Canada, plant scientists continue to receive only a tiny fraction of the
overall research budget, and there is little political motivation for this to shift. How can we
change this?

As individuals, we have little clout. The collective voice of scientific societies, presenting the
informed opinion of many, is the way forward to engaging with policy makers, and informing
public opinion. Working together to champion our collective success and foster a supportive
network in which researchers can thrive throughout their careers is another objective. Plant
Canada was founded for these purposes.

Plant Canada is a founding member of the Global Plant Council, which since 2009, has been “a
single, strong voice in the policy and decision-making arena, promoting plant science research
and teaching around the world”. Our Past President, Deena Errampalli, has been the Treasurer
of GPC since 2017, and for the past year, I have had observer status on the Board of Directors.

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