20 young innovators shaping crops, 
climate resilience and the European 
seed sector.
Breeding the 
Future
Dear readers of Seed World Europe,
Plant breeding has a funny way 
of hiding in plain sight. Every day 
we eat bread, pasta, vegetables, 
fruit, or a simple bowl of cereal 
without giving much thought to 
where those crops actually came 
from. Yet behind every harvest is 
a long chain of decisions made 
by plant breeders, sometimes 
over a decade or more, selecting, 
crossing, testing and selecting 
again until a new variety finally 
reaches farmers’ fields.
I was reminded of this again while 
preparing this year’s “20 Most” 
feature. As some of you may know, 
I studied plant breeding myself in 
Wageningen many years ago. Back 
then, much of the work involved 
muddy boots, notebooks, and 
long days in field plots carefully 
observing plants. Today, breeders 
still walk their trials, but alongside 
that field work you will now find 
genomic selection models, artificial 
intelligence, predictive analytics, 
high-throughput phenotyping 
systems, and an ever-growing 
mountain of data. The essence of 
plant breeding has not changed. 
But the toolbox certainly has. And 
that is exactly what makes this 
year’s theme so exciting.
For our April 2026 edition, Seed 
World Europe proudly presents the 
20 Most Promising Young Plant 
Breeders in Europe. These young 
scientists represent the next 
generation of innovators working 
to strengthen Europe’s plant 
breeding and seed sector.
Plant breeding sits quietly at 
the very beginning of the food 
chain. Long before a loaf of bread 
appears on a kitchen table, a 
tomato reaches a supermarket 
shelf, or a field of maize ripens 
under the summer sun, breeders 
have spent years developing 
the varieties that make those 
harvests possible. Their work 
improves yields, strengthens 
resistance to pests and 
diseases, enhances tolerance 
to drought, heat, and salinity, 
and helps farmers produce 
more food with fewer inputs.
In a world facing climate 
change, geopolitical 
uncertainty, biodiversity 
pressure, and a growing 
global population, the 
role of plant breeding 
has never been more 
6  I  SEED WORLD EUROPE  I  SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE | MAY 2026

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