Dear friend of Kickstarter,
Some of us have a day job, and some of us don't. Technically I am retired, drawing Social Security. But I am busier than ever. I have been a plant breeder of pawpaws (Asimina triloba) since 1981, with the intention of bringing them out of the woods and into our farms and gardens and dining tables. The pawpaw is North America's largest edible native fruit, a member of the Custard Apple Family and the only member that is temperate; all others are tropical. At any rate the pawpaw fruit, even in the wild, can be fabulous, and I have developed six terrific varieties generally superior to the other pawpaw varieties in the trade.
My scientific work of breeding morphed in 1999 into the commercial aspect, and now here it is, 2015, and I have seven nurseries licensed to sell my trees, and one nursery in Europe and one in Japan that are licensed (but not selling). That is the reason for my Kickstarter project, to provide the funds for registering Trademarks in EU and Japan: expensive but necessary to protect the marketing of these commodities. In the US I already have the trademarks. This is explained really well on my Kickstarter page, which also includes the NPR interview with me about my work:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/17 ... -go-global Well, as you can see I am passionate about this work. I never received any compensation for 20+ years of breeding until recently --- maybe just in time for my retirement. I should mention that breeding pawpaws, collecting scions, selling fruit, and giving lectures does not keep me busy all year round. In my previous life I was an agricultural economist, and I still maintain an interest in that field. And pursue research interest in physical anthropology --- and creative writing of poetry and screen play.