Seed World

Garlich von Essen, Secretary-General of ESA talks with Marcel Bruins at the 2018 ESA Annual meeting in Madrid, Spain from October 7-9, 2018.

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The post Garlich von Essen (ESA) Continued Growth, Biggest Progress, ECJ Decision, INVITE Project, and Brexit – Podcast appeared first on Seed World.

Growing up in Victoria, B.C., David Hansen didn’t see himself in agribusiness. In fact, he had no understanding or appreciation of agriculture. His destiny was in law enforcement and the RCMP.

“When I graduated high school, I was in fact too young to apply to the RCMP. I went to Saskatchewan for a brief holiday, that included time with relatives who owned a small family farm in the Melfort area. This first-ever experience of the farm at harvest literally set the stage for what would become a life long career in ag. This was truly an amazing experience for me compared to life I knew as a kid growing up in Victoria,” says the 59-year-old president and chief executive officer of Winnipeg’s Canterra Seeds.

(Listen to Dave Hansen talk about the paradigm shift that took place within the industry when hybrid canola took off.)

At the conclusion of harvest, Hansen was offered a position with Continental Grain, working in a small country grain elevator. Hansen spent the next 10 years, involved in the grain industry, in Saskatoon and later in Winnipeg, working as a grain merchant, primarily in the canola and feed grains business. In the mid 1980s Hansen made a decision to make the move to the organization’s global seed business, Conti Seed, who were in the very early stages of commercializing the very first Polima based canola hybrids. These hybrids were coming from the sister company Pacific Seeds in Australia and Mr. Greg Buzza.

“At the time, I didn’t know how significant an event this was in setting the stage for what would become a complete revolution in terms of the advancement of canola industry in Western Canada. The evolution of the canola hybrid seed industry, new hybrid systems, herbicide resistance traits, and so on. Who could have predicted what was to come?”

(Hansen talks about working with the industry’s best to help hybrid canola take off in Western Canada.)

Fast forward to today, and Hansen is in a position to help lead what he sees as the second revolution in Canadian seed — the dawn of a new era in the world of cereals.

Not only does Canterra Seeds have the broadest seed portfolio in Western Canada — offering canola, cereals, pulses, corn, soybeans and special crops — it has partnered with France’s Limagrain to form Limagrain Cereals Research Canada, which is developing what Hansen says will be game-changing cereal varieties for growers — with a focus on spring wheat.

For Hansen, partnering with Limagrain made all the sense in the world. Two like-minded organizations who have a clear focus on seed and both companies created by farmers — for farmers. Hansen has made a career of taking advantage of opportunities, appreciating the value of partnerships, and more importantly, understanding the customer is the farmer.

“Hybrid canola was both the evolution of a crop that has dominated the Prairies for the past 20 years, and the private seed industry in Canada, at the same time. In the early years, marketing and selling hybrid canola was very much a different ball game. We had a unique opportunity to do something very different. To bring a new value proposition to the farmer. It started out doing simple things, such as creating a brand, seed packaging, revising seed distribution channels, learning how to actually sell both the concept and the value of hybrids. We had a lot of fun, developing demo trials for the growers, hosting field days for the farmers and industry alike. They were fun times. It was something new and something exciting for everyone. As they say, the rest is history.”

But for Hansen, the best is yet to come. He sees wheat as the last bastion for the plant breeding industry. Wheat is the single largest crop type worldwide, and yet it’s the crop that has seen the least amount of investment.

“What we have learned from corn, soybeans, canola and other such major crop types can be applied to wheat. If we are serious about feeding the world, we also need to be serious about wheat. The tools are all there and now is the time for next crop revolution. And just as we have seen what can be done with corn and canola, we can and will do the same for wheat.”

(Hear Dave Hansen talk about Canterra Seeds’ success in the market and the benefits of working amongst multinationals.)

The post Dave Hansen has a Front Row Seat for the Next Ag Revolution appeared first on Seed World.

Today (June 11), members of the American Seed Trade Association approved the framework for a new strategic plan to help guide the work of the association in the coming years. The vote took place this morning during the annual business meeting, which was part of ASTA’s new Policy and Leadership Development Conference, held June 9-13 in Washington, D.C.

Core areas of the strategic plan include: domestic policy, innovation, communications, intellectual property rights, international, and membership and internal matters. Current ASTA Chairman Tracy Tally of Justin Seed Company and incoming Chairman Jerry Flint of Corteva, the agriculture division of DowDuPont, sat down with Seed World to talk about the strategic plan and discuss some of the work done behind the scenes.

Listen to the interview here.

The post From DC: ASTA Members Approved New Strategic Plan appeared first on Seed World.

Germination presents a series of stories on the 20 most influential people in the seed sector in 2018. Want to nominate someone for 2019? Email [email protected] with the subject line “Top 20 nomination”!

Trevor Heck has some big shoes to fill — but given his background in helping people develop themselves and their businesses into success stories, he’s the perfect person to fill them.

Heck has taken over for the recently-retired Jay Bradshaw as president of Syngenta Canada and is ready to hit the ground running and continue the important work his predecessor began in helping the company move forward after its recent acquisition by ChemChina.

“When I found out I was going to take over for Jay, it was a combination of being very excited and thinking about what a challenge lay ahead of me. It was a bit surreal. For the longest time, being president was a dream of mine, but I put it in the background for quite a few years because so much was happening,” says the Calgary-based Heck, 49.

“In my previous role as head of marketing, I worked closely with Jay and have huge respect for him. When he told me it was going to happen, Jay gave me some great advice and said, ‘Do it your way — keep doing what you’re doing and make the role your own.’ It really set me at ease.”

But for Heck, the process of self-discovery is nothing new. As a certified executive coach (a designation he attained through B.C.’s Royal Roads University), he’s become adept at recognizing his strengths and knowing where he might need to improve in an effort to be the best leader he can be and help others develop personally and professionally.

“The Royal Roads program was all about being comfortable with yourself as a leader and developing your empathy and recognizing your own vulnerability, which is important when it comes to good leadership,” he says.

“Becoming a certified coach helped me understand other leaders’ challenges, be it other executives, managers or employees. It helped me be more comfortable with the challenges we have in our industry and understand there are common leadership challenges and other people are going through similar things.”

Those industry challenges include adapting to the speed of change. For Heck, success means matching investment to opportunities and recognizing the potential for crops like soybeans in Western Canada.

“That was something that started several years ago in Eastern Canada and shows you what can be accomplished through innovation with the right approach. Syngenta has a great brand to encourage investment in what we call ‘technified’ crops like soybeans, corn and canola. On the other hand, there are staples like wheat that aren’t moving at the same speed and need innovation on the technical side, but also need attention on the value proposition side to remain relevant.”

As someone who grew up surrounded by agriculture (he describes his dad’s office as “a revolving door of farmers coming in to talk about buying grain”), Heck’s approach to his work is one of constant change and never getting too comfortable with his surroundings. After all, he started his career with a Syngenta legacy company and has been with the organization ever since through its many incarnations. The ChemChina acquisition is just the latest in a long process of evolution.

“Syngenta has given me the chance to see agriculture in many countries around the world and understand how we are innovating in different markets,” he adds.

“That really is a big feather in the cap for our business going forward, but also for the Canadian industry — looking at how we can continue to attract the global investment that has made us so successful.”

(Hear Trevor speak about how he got bit by the agriculture bug in his youth.)

The post Trevor Heck Accepts Advice and Doesn’t Mind Being Vulnerable appeared first on Seed World.

Germination presents a series of stories on the 20 most influential people in the seed sector in 2018. Want to nominate someone for 2019? Email [email protected] with the subject line “Top 20 nomination”!

As our industry works to design a next-generation seed regulatory system for Canada via the Seed Synergy Collaboration Project, Wendy Jahn can feel the weight of the responsibility on her shoulders. As national manager of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Seed Section, she’s responsible for enforcing the Seeds Act and Regulations and administering federal seed law within Canada.

With the entire seed regulatory system currently under the microscope, the next couple of years are going to be crucial for the CFIA, the seed industry and Jahn herself.

“I can’t help but feel the biggest challenge of my career is yet to come,” she says. She’s been at CFIA for 12 years and had a decade of experience in the agriculture industry prior to that. She says that seed regulatory modernization offers a once-in-a-generation chance to create a new future for an entire industry, and with 2020 being the goal to finalize that new regulatory system, Jahn has a lot of work to do.

She took over as Seed Section national manager a year ago, having served as one of the acting managers prior to that. She’s seen the CFIA Seed Section evolve over the past number of years, as the federal agency has progressively turned to alternative service delivery for activities that CFIA itself used to provide — a process she says is nothing new and actually began in 1904 with the creation of the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association.

“We’ve always believed it’s important to look at where we need government to be and where we don’t,” she says. “We still need to have confidence in our seed certification system and seed regulatory system as a whole, but there are opportunities for many activities occurring outside of regulation and perhaps even outside government. It’s been a fascinating journey.”

For Jahn, that journey originally began when she finished her master’s degree in plant breeding at the University of Guelph. She wanted to work in seed, but her first job was with Maple Leaf Foods exporting food grade soybeans. She was connected with the seed industry in various forms throughout her career including her time as general manager of the Ontario Soybean Growers.

“I’ve worked for a private company, provincial and federal governments and a producer group. Most of us at the CFIA Seed Section have worked in industry in a number of capacities. We know the challenges the industry faces,” she says. That makes CFIA staff adept at working with industry to create a new regulatory system that works for stakeholders and best serves Canadians, Jahn adds.

“I’m really hopeful that seed regulatory modernization will result in the best outcome to make a level playing field for industry and for the producers and consumers who purchase seed and related products,” she adds. “The next few years will be a big challenge for me but a great experience.”

(Hear Wendy Jahn speak about the evolution of seed regulatory modernization.)

The post Wendy Jahn Feels her Biggest Challenge is Yet to Come appeared first on Seed World.

Germination presents a series of stories on the 20 most influential people in the seed sector in 2018. Want to nominate someone for 2019? Email [email protected] with the subject line “Top 20 nomination”!

To quote fictional anchorman Ron Burgundy, what Tom Steve is currently working on is — in wheat circles — kind of a big deal. If it comes to fruition, it could serve to rock the very foundations of western Canadian agriculture and change the way farmers think about cereals.

Steve, general manager of both the Alberta Wheat Commission and Alberta Barley Commission, is at the forefront of an effort to create value in wheat, to make it a more profitable crop and get the private sector as interested in wheat as it is in big-money crops like soybeans and canola.

Steve is co-chair of the Value Creation Working Group, tasked by the Grains Round Table to come up with a way to stimulate investment in cereal breeding. Steve and fellow working group co-chair Erin Armstrong — director of industry and regulatory affairs for Canterra Seeds — have come up with two models that are becoming a huge topic of conversation among growers and within the seed industry.

At the same time, Steve is once again proving why he’s a person of influence who isn’t afraid to stand in front of a room of farmers and explain why the funding model for wheat variety development needs to change.

“The system we have today is predominantly funded by producer and public money. That in itself is a risk,” Steve says in the frank, no-nonsense tone of voice he’s become known for — a voice that comes from having started his career in the 1970s as a broadcast journalist (serving as director of communications to the premier of Saskatchewan and as cabinet press secretary). He entered the ag industry in the late 1990s working in the grain sector.

“Public funding could be at risk of becoming flat or declining due to the realities of budgets and the shrinking number of farmers. It’s a win-win to bring more private investment to the market and better genetics, too. The risk is that if we continue down the path we’ve been going down all these years, Canada may not remain competitive globally as far as cereals go.”

The idea hasn’t come without controversy, he acknowledges.

“I hear from farmers that wheat is a lower margin commodity on their farm, but they don’t want to change anything. There’s a fundamental contradiction there. Of course, no one wants to pay more for seed if they don’t get an immediate return — they have a legitimate concern there. But here’s the thing — we need to look longer term at where our competition is coming form, and where the yields and quality of our product need to go to be competitive long term. And the only way to do that is through value creation.”

Changing financial and organizational models that have been long relied upon has become second nature for the 61-year-old Steve. As general manager of both the Alberta wheat and barley commissions, he’s working toward the integration of both organizations’ respective management teams.

“Merging management teams is somewhat ground-breaking in Alberta in terms of having two major commodity groups under one umbrella. In the past we’ve tended to have single commissions for each of the crops individually. We’re doing something new and are really excited about it,” he says.

(Hear Tom talk about working with Erin Armstrong and the origins of the working group’s proposed models for value creation).

The post Tom Steve’s New Project is Kind of a Big Deal appeared first on Seed World.