The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy requested that the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) examine (1) the current state of plant breeding in the public and private sectors and (2) the educational pipeline for plant breeding. To determine the number of professional plant breeders and the crops that they work with, STPI research staff developed and sent a survey to heads of plant breeding departments and colleges at academic institutions and to private sector companies in the United States. In total, STPI received 82 completed surveys from 70 academic institutions and 14 completed surveys from private sector companies. In addition to gathering information via surveys, STPI research staff collected institutional research data and conducted interviews. This research builds upon previous surveys of public sector plant breeders done in 1994, 2001, and 2013, which were led by Kenneth Frey, Greg Traxler, and Thomas E. Carter, Jr., respectively.