b'GIANT VIEWSWHY OUR MOVE TO CANADA IS A NO-BRAINERWHEN I LOOK at Canada, I see a legacy agricultural commu- United States, but both are dedicated nity that is going places. mostly to sales and marketing. While Ive seen that potential for many years, but it reallyin Canada our goal is to be involved became evident to me in 2015 when NRGene, a companyin research and development of I co-founded in Israel a decade ago, got involved in thebetter performing varieties and our International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortiumoffice here will be dedicated to R&D (IWGSC) project and began working with Canadianactivities.researchers on decoding the wheat genome. This is the place we want to build Gil Ronen, It was a big project. At the time, decoding the wheattrue collaboration to not only pro-CEO, NRGene genome was a major challenge as its a highly complexvide software but create roadmaps to crop. Work on the bread wheat genome had been in pro- developing better seeds. We are get-cess for more than a decade. Our technology was capableting a lot of support in Canada from of decoding the wheat genome and completed the workseed companies and academia.in two months, five years ahead of time.Recent months have shed new light on the importance of local and global food sustainability and secu-rity. Bringing food to the supermarket shelves is not a trivial task. You need IT HELPS THAT CANADA IS MAKING GREATthe entire value chain to do that, from breeders and farmers to food STRIDES IN THE AREA OF REGULATORYcompanies and distributors.As the world figures out how to MODERNIZATION WHICH WILL ALLOW IT TObuild the infrastructure needed to BETTER COMPETE ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE. maintain food security, Canada, as one of the leading countries of agri-cultural produce, has an important role to play in setting an example for how to develop better performing Saskatchewan researchers, including wheat breedervarieties.and researcher Curtis Pozniak and his team, played a keyIt helps that Canada is making role in the international consortiums success.great strides in the area of regulatory Aside from the Green Revolution, it was perhaps onemodernization which will allow it to of the most significant events in the history of wheatbetter compete on the international breeding. Since then, we have enjoyed multiple projects instage. Canada involving canola, lentil, mustard, beans, and more.With a world-class agricultural Together we initiated the worlds first canola pange- research cluster in Saskatoon, a bur-nome consortium led by Isobel Parkin from AAFC. Allgeoning AgTech sector, and such a that laid a further foundation for our strong and long- strong history of primary production, lasting relationships with the community of Canadianwe see Canada as a natural place for researchers and agricultural companies.NRGene to expand its operations and That is why NRGene decided to open a Canadianas a country staking its rightful place office in Saskatoon. We currently have two offices in theas an international breeding hub. 56GERMINATION.CAJULY 2020'