We are excited to see Bill Tracy, one of the leaders of the UW Organic Collaborative, featured in The Guardian for his 40 years of leadership in sweetcorn breeding.
For 40 years, Bill Tracy, one of the leaders of the UW Organic Collaborative, has been breeding sweet corn in Wisconsin, sometimes tasting hundreds of ears a day in pursuit of extraordinary flavor. One variety was so remarkable that the first 100 people who tried it all had the same reaction: “Wow.” Yet it never reached grocery stores. Why? Because in today’s agricultural system, traits like durability, yield, and transportability often outweigh taste.
Tracy’s story, featured in The Guardian, highlights a bigger question:
What have we sacrificed in the pursuit of efficiency—and what would it take to bring flavor back to our food?
The future of farming isn’t just about producing more. It may be about growing better.