b"PLANT BREEDERBreeding for a Bigger PurposeRaja Ragupathys plant breeding work is focused on helping future generations. WHEN RAJA RAGUPATHYwas a boy growing up in India, he witnessed firsthand the importance of food security. The nations population was growing fast and feeding all those mouths was of utter importance. Ragupathys father, Ragupathy Govindarasu, was a farmer who believed in the importance of education for his childrenwhich is how Ragupathy found himself learning to value education and agriculture during his childhood. His father, a rice and pulse farmer, mainly focused on his farming endeavours, with coastal salinity of soils being the main problem wreaking havoc on his farm. As Ragupathy continued his studies in post-secondary school, he knew there was only one thing he wanted to focus onagriculture, and in particular, helping to fight against food insecurity. He received his bachelor of science in agriculture at Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and Research Institute, and then his masters in plant breeding and genetics at Tamil Nadu Agricultural.I excelled in studies. I got this interest to go abroad for higher studies to expand my knowledge. And at that time, I got this opportunity to continue at the University of Manitoba for my PhD,Raja Ragupathy, research scientist at AAFC LethbridgeRagupathy explains in a phone interview.He found himself travelling halfway around the world to study genomics and develop field ready cultivars under the direction ofclass of wheat for Canadian farmers. For his genomics research he Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Research Scientisthas been working on perennial cereal developmentRagupathy Sylvie Cloutier. Years later he would find himself workingis following the footprint left by recently retired AAFC Lethbridge alongside Cloutiers husband Gavin Humphreys, breeding the nextplant breeder Surya Acharyas and recently departed AAFC generation of durum wheats. Researcher Jamie Larsen work on this.In 2008, Ragupathy finished his PhD studies and then workedThe Government of Canada is involved in developing crops as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council ofwith climate resilience, Ragupathy explains. The objective of Canada (NSERC) visiting fellow at AAFC Winnipeg. In 2015, anit is a perennial wheatthat means we want to perennialize opportunity to work as a research associate at the University ofannual wheat. We have to develop our prototype in the genomic Saskatchewan and AAFC Saskatoon presented itself. In 2017 hebackground.was promoted to a research scientist position focusing on springFor the winter durum wheat, Ragupathy is working with AAFC durum wheat breeding at AAFC Swift Current. Two years later inscientists across Canada, including Humphreys, at AAFC Ottawa. 2019, he was offered a position at AAFC Lethbridge as a researchHumphreys is the eastern Canadian AAFC winter wheat breeder. scientist in crop breeding and genomics. When Ragupathy reached out to him to screen winter durum I came to Canada, 15,000 kilometers away from my (home) tovarieties for winter hardiness and fusarium head blight resistance, be a world class researcher, not only identifying a big scientifiche jumped at the chance to help his wifes former PhD student. problem, but also solving it as a scientist. I hope to solve theHumphreys also hoped this would lead to opportunities for winter problems not only define the problem, he says. durum varieties for farmers in Eastern Canada.The focus of Ragupathys work at AAFC Lethbridge is genomicsClimate change, I know that's a buzzword these days, but in fact, research and developing field ready cultivars for fall rye, wintercertainly in Eastern Canada, it's a reality that winters are not nearly durum and winter triticale. Hes also working with the AAFC teamas severe, Humphreys says in a phone interview. If we can develop on breeding a winter durum wheat variety, which will create a newwinter varieties that can grow well in Western Canada as well as 36seed.ab.ca"