To me, breeding is like having a baby the birth expectation and the joy of watching them grow is amazing. Over the years, I developed a passion for plant breeding and I realized it has immense potential to improve people’s lives in countless ways. While studying crop science at university, I became fascinated with genetics and plant breeding, and that oriented me towards agriculture. What drew you to plant breeding and how have you worked with farmers to improve it? Matova describes for Nature why plant breeding is like expecting a birth, and how he has worked with farmers to bring them into the research process and improve food security. He is currently a research and seed-production manager and lead maize and legumes breeder. Since November 2020, Matova has worked for the private company Mukushi Seeds in Harare. In 2014, he earned a master’s degree in crop science from the University of Zimbabwe in 2021, he gained a PhD from the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on breeding maize to resist a pest called the fall armyworm ( Spodoptera frugiperda). At the CBI from 2006 to 2020, he worked to improve varieties of cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata), a legume eaten by both humans and cattle, and of maize (corn Zea mays).
After graduating, he joined the Crop Breeding Institute (CBI) in Harare, part of Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services. Credit: Prince MatovaĮver since he began his studies at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare in 2002, Prince Matova has been fascinated by how crop breeding could feed the world in better, more sustainable ways.
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Plant geneticist Prince Matova (centre, dark shirt) demonstrates how to lay out trials of new crop varieties for dryland farmers in Matabeleland South in Zimbabwe.
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