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”!

Greg Stokke knows the secret to being a great leader: surround yourself with talented, creative people and then get out of their way.

“I will lay out the vision and point out the path, but I’m not going to tell people how to get to the end point,” says Stokke, Western Canada area leader for Corteva Agriscience, the recently-announced spinoff company resulting from the DowDuPont merger.

Corteva Agriscience will officially launch on June 1, 2019. In the mean time, DowDuPont has announced the launch of its new seed brand Brevant in Latin America, Canada and selected European countries. The recent merger means a new vision and some major goals for Stokke and his team to execute and deliver on.

“It’s great to have the opportunity to watch a brand-new standalone pure play ag company like Corteva get started. Between DuPont Pioneer, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont Crop Protection, there’s a lot of history there — over 300 combined years. We’re bringing three large, complex organizations together and splitting off an ag division called Corteva Agriscience — but what is Corteva? What does it stand for? What is its guiding philosophy? Lots of great questions,” Stokke says.

“We’re starting with a fresh slate and we’re going to bring all the things that were great about the legacy companies but create something completely new at the same time.”

Based in Watrous, Sask, the 45-year-old graduate of the University of Saskatchewan got started in the agriculture industry in 1995 when he started working for Zeneca Agrochemicals, which would merge with Novartis to form Syngenta. After a decade at Syngenta he moved to DuPont Pioneer, starting as an account manager before working his way up to canola business manager, Western Canada business director and finally Western Canada area leader.

You might say he’s always revelled in building things from scratch.

“I was so interested in the agriculture industry when I finished school because it had so much going for it with new exciting crops and technologies. Farmers and customers are always really passionate about genetics and traits and I wanted to get in at the ground level and build something new,” says Stokke, who in addition to his responsibilities at Corteva Agriscience is also a fourth-generation farmer. His farm is located in Watrous, Sask., just over 100 kilometres east of Saskatoon.

For Stokke, the table is set for success at Corteva Agriscience, but nothing can be taken for granted in an increasingly consolidated and competitive industry. That’s why he’s taking to heart the advice of many great leaders who emphasize the importance of not getting in the way of your team members.

“Starting a new company is about letting go of the past and relearning, which involves empowering employees to make decisions. When I moved to Pioneer 14 years ago, I always felt empowered to do that. I want to pay that forward.”

As the vision for Corteva Agriscience develops, Stokke stands ready to usher in the company’s inaugural era with a simple yet important realization that’s come from his years as a farmer.

“What got us here today won’t get us to the next step in the future. We need new ideas, new perspectives. We need to be open-minded and adaptable. But Corteva’s focus is really tight, and I would venture to say it’s better than it was in its legacy companies. That’s a great spot to be in.”

(Hear Greg talk about the guiding vision for the launch of Corteva Agriscience.)

The post Greg Stokke Won’t Stand in Anyone’s Way 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”!

Garth Hodges says dreams are like seeds — they start small, you plant them into the minds of people, you nurture them and don’t give up on them. One of his dreams was Bayer Crop Science’s InVigor¬® pod shatter reduction technology, which went into development in 2000 and launched 14 years later.

“Through sheer persistence of scientists and breeders and people like myself, we never gave up despite many challenges and obstacles. We’re still discovering how important that idea was and is to farmers. The success wasn’t the technology itself, but the persistence of the team who believed in that dream,” says Hodges, strategy lead for canola at Bayer’s Crop Science division based in Calgary, Alberta.

After a long career in agriculture that had its roots during his youth growing up in South Africa, he has worked in Canada since 2002 when he assumed the role of general manager for Bayer’s global canola seed business. In his current role, he is leading the proposed divestment of the InVigor Canola seed business to BASF.

Hodges and his team define what it means to play an influential role in the business of seed, and that role is only continuing to evolve as Bayer works through with the acquisition of Monsanto. Hodges has led the divestment process of the Bayer seeds business, which he says has involved grooming new leaders who can guide the business into the future.

(Garth talks about positioning the company for success through change.)

“The biggest challenge or dream I have now is recognizing InVigor’s responsibility as a leader in our segment, and how do we move our seeds business into a new corporate environment and make what has been a successful business into something that continues to be a leader in the industry,” says the 58-year-old.

But Hodges is well equipped to lead his teams into uncharted corporate waters. He began his career in agriculture when he finished a degree in plant pathology and entomology at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University. After finishing school, he joined the South African military in 1984. He quickly achieved the rank of lieutenant and gained his first experience in leadership.

Because of his educational background he was involved in carrying out agricultural projects on the northern border of South Africa. It was through those projects he made his first contact with crop protection companies. After his service was over, he went to work for a company called FBC Holdings. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, he has essentially been at the same company his entire career, eventually winding up at Bayer after it acquired Aventis CropScience.

He credits his military service with shaping him into the leader he has become, guiding the Bayer seeds business into a new future.

“In the military you learn principles of interdependency, discipline and leadership, but more importantly you learn to appreciate people and how each one contributes and how to bring out the best in those people.

That’s what I’ve tried to look for in putting an awesome team around me. When you’re in the business long enough, you get to see some of your dreams come true.”

The post Garth Hodges Has Big Dreams, and a Few Have Even Come True 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”!

Jason Reinheimer isn’t shy about giving his predictions on the future of western Canadian agriculture. One of those predictions is that wheat will soon overtake canola as the West’s biggest money crop.

“In the next five years we’re going to see major shifts in our wheat industry, and in cereals in general,” says the 39-year-old native of southern Australia. He serves as senior breeder for the Saskatchewan-based Limagrain Cereals Research Canada (LCRC), a wheat breeding partnership between France’s Limagrain and the Manitoba-based Canterra Seeds.

“It’s an exciting time for cereals right now. The level of private investment is increasing and with that investment comes more competition. As a whole, the industry is also more enabled than ever to develop more potential genetic combinations to increase productivity and the value of wheat in Canada. A new era in cereals is almost here.”

And as senior breeder for LCRC, Reinheimer is at the forefront of that new era. Growing up on a mixed grain farm in the land Down Under, he became enamoured with the subject of plant breeding in his teens, which led him to complete a PhD in plant breeding at the University of Adelaide. After he finished school, he went to work at a small startup called Australian Grain Technologies (AGT), now Australia’s largest plant breeding company, where he had his own breeding program at a comparatively young age.

For Reinheimer, to be a successful breeder you have to look at the world like a farmer does.

“The diversity of knowledge you need to be a good farmer, the diversity of topics you cover to be successful at farming — I can draw a strong lineage between farming and plant breeding. That’s what attracts me to it and has brought me to where I am now in Canada. My experiences farming and working with AGT have enabled me to look further abroad as to where I can have an impact and contribute.”

(Hear Jason talk about why he loves working in cereals.)

Now that he’s in Canada, Reinheimer is helping lead a mission to bring the same kind of private sector investment to the world of cereals that other big money crops like canola and soybeans have already had the benefit of.

LCRC, he says, represents a new approach to cereal breeding where the private sector is working to make wheat more than just a rotational crop for Canadian growers. Limagrain is the fourth-largest seed company in the world. To say LCRC and Reinheimer have a lot of resources at their disposal would be an understatement — but he admits that all the resources in the world don’t automatically translate into success.

“The biggest challenge for a plant breeder is taking all that research and technology and packaging it in a way that’s useful for the farmer. That’s what leads to success as a company. The challenge for the wheat industry is to find a way to enable companies like ours to be financially viable.”

Part of the key, he adds, is creating a system for value creation, so breeders in the private sector have an incentive to produce new, cutting-edge wheat varieties to benefit the farmer. That value creation discussion is ramping up, and two funding models were recently put forward by the Grains Round Table’s Value Creation Working Group.

Once that funding system is in place, Reinheimer says the foundation will be set to formally usher in that new era for cereals in Canada.

“The DNA fingerprinting technology and genome marker platforms we have access to were so expensive just a few short years ago. Since then, we’ve been able to apply those technologies to almost all the new genotypes that we develop every year. Before we test a variety in the field we can predict how it will perform in terms of yield, disease resistance and quality, and only spend our dollars on lines we know are going to be good or very good,” he adds.

“It makes our breeding program way more efficient, because testing new varieties in the field across the broad expanse of Western Canada is very costly. To focus just on which varieties we know will be successful is an unbelievable new ability to have.”

(Jason talks about his vision for the future of wheat in western Canada.)

The post Jason Reinheimer Thinks Wheat will be the Most Profitable Crop in the West 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”!

These days, Brenda Trask is known by many as the communications manager for SeCan. The owner of communications company Brenda Trask and Associates has become known as not only an effective communicator and brand-builder, but as the seed sector’s memory-maker.

Her influence extends to many places, whether it’s helping build SeCan into what it is today (the largest distributor of certified seed to Canadian farmers) or serving as a co-chair of the Midge-Tolerant Wheat Stewardship Team.

She’s brought her skills to 20-plus seed brands in Canada over the course of her career. Through it all, she’s tackled the task at hand with one question in mind — how to make an impression.

“People don’t have much time anymore. Whatever I work on, I have to think, ‘How do I make every event I work on memorable or unique?’ My mantra has always been that people won’t remember what you did or what you said, but how you made them feel.”

(Hear Brenda Trask talk about where her love for communications began.)

For any seed brand, the biggest challenge is to keep ahead of the change that’s coming, recognizing the best way to promote varieties to your audience, she says. “Trying to keep ahead of the curve and figure out how to carry out that communications strategy most effectively is No. 1 if you want to be successful in selling seed.”

She’s been to the East and West, seen every crop you can name, and has an appreciation for how things have changed from a private company perspective, from a non-profit, and from a committee perspective.

She organized the 2010 International Seed Federation World Seed Congress in Calgary, which which took four years to plan and for which she received the Canadian Seed Trade Association’s Seed Achievement Award in 2011.

After years of experience in the ag sphere, she has no intention of retiring anytime soon.

“As long as I love what I do, I will keep working. I love to come to work every single day, and I feel very fortunate to feel that way.”

(Trask talks about her biggest successes in the seed sector.)

The post Brenda Trask Makes Memories and Helps Brands Succeed 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”!

Developing a brand is no easy task. There’s a lot involved, and no one knows that better than Jeff Reid.

The former researcher sits at the helm of SeCan as its general manager, and in a world where the corporate sphere often dominates, he has taken the SeCan brand to unprecedented heights and helped farmers across the country access the latest genetics and newest varieties.

SeCan is the largest supplier of certified seed to Canadian farmers and currently offers seed for the widest range of crop types in its history.

(Hear Jeff Reid speak about what he feels makes SeCan such an important presence in Canada.)

“Our members are people who are invested heavily in rural communities — they have a lot of skin in the game,” he says. “When we go to create new partnerships with public institutions and producer groups, that resonates well with the fact we’re representing a broad sector of the private seed industry across Canada.”

Reid got involved in the seed sector in 1987, working for Cargill when the company was still in the hybrid corn breeding business. He moved to C&M Seeds in Western Ontario, starting in research and branching out into marketing, management and sales. He helped develop the red wheat industry in Ontario. Until then, all the hard red wheat was grown exclusively in Western Canada.

The move to SeCan brought him full circle. He now oversees both the development of new varieties and the subsequent marketing of them to growers. For Reid, success is putting together a team of high-functioning people who can get the job done and keep SeCan at the forefront of variety development and marketing.

“When we think of how new breeding techniques will change the landscape, there are a lot of balls for us to keep our eyes on at any given time. A great thing about this team at SeCan is many of us have been involved in both R&D and, at the other end of the spectrum, customer service. There are a lot of things coming together in terms of technology and policy in the next five to 10 years that will have remarkable impacts on the seed industry, and we’ll be ready,” he says.

(Jeff Reid speaks about some of the biggest challenges facing the seed sector today.)

The post Jeff Reid has his Eye on the Ball and his Mind on the Future 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 someone whose job it is to safeguard the intellectual property (IP) of plant breeders, you might consider Lorne Hadley to be the plant breeder’s patron saint. As executive director of the Canadian Plant Technology Agency, Hadley leads the action agency working to ensure intellectual property is respected in Canada.

Since he took over as executive director of the CPTA in 2001, it has issued 700 warnings to PBR violators, launched 70 investigations, logged 4,500 hours investigating IP violations, and obtained four settlements over $200,000.

“One thing that has made me successful in this is role is I’ve worked in so many areas of this industry over the past 35 years. I’ve been a seed salesman, operated a processing plant, supervised seed sales, supervised people in management, sales and marketing, you name it. When I’m in a room doing a presentation on Plant Breeders’ Rights for frontline staff, I can be an effective educator because I’ve likely been in the shoes of almost everyone in that room,” he says.

(Lorne Hadley talks about how he’s become such an effective educator.)

Hadley’s journey through the industry began when he was a boy, growing up on a farm in west central Saskatchewan. After earning an agricultural economics degree from the University of Saskatchewan, he’d eventually go on to become a sales manager for Proven Seed.

“We took that brand from just a vision to being a major player in the seed sector in Western Canada. We had a dedicated retail force and good relationships with seed growers. We got good varieties that were well adopted,” he says.

The experience also taught him the value of IP, and why the issue of IP in seed can be an emotional one for everyone involved.

“There are not a lot of products a farmer absolutely cannot can’t do without. You have to have and own seed to plant a crop, without exception. It puts it on a different emotional level than most other inputs,” Hadley says.

(Listen to Lorne Hadley talk about why seed is such an emotional topic.)

After leaving Proven’s Seed’s parent company in 2001, he formed AgGenuity Consulting, and was shortly afterward hired on to serve as CPTA’s executive director on a contract basis. He’s since become known as an indispensable educator on the issue of IP in seed, which can be a thorny topic among farmers at the best of times.

“I try hard to use words that everyone understands, and use them in ways everyone understands, and not fall into the trap of using too many acronyms and what older farmers often call 10-dollar words,” he says.

“I’ve always believed there are no bad questions, and you need to let people who are upset speak. If someone doesn’t like what’s going on, you should listen and try to understand them first before you respond. Sometimes that’s difficult, but you have to get to the stage of letting the person who’s upset get enough off their chest so they’re ready to receive your answer.”

With the Seed Synergy Collaboration Project in full swing (it’s meant to design a next-generation seed regulatory system for the country), Hadley sees a hugely significant opportunity to make PBR and intellectual property rights centre stage like never before.

“Ninety-five per cent of producers fully support the belief that we need new varieties, and those new varieties have to be paid for, and they can pay for that through the purchase of seed and the use of contracts where the user pays,” Hadley adds.

“We as a society value innovation and want innovators to be rewarded, but we also want to have a system where others who want to innovate can do so and build on what’s been done and make it better.”

(Lorne Hadley talks about why Seed Synergy is so significant to the issue of IP protection.)

The post Lorne Hadley Likes to Listen and Avoids 10-Dollar Words 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”!

Iris Meck might not work directly in the seed industry, but that’s not stopping her from having a big influence on it.

Meck, owner of Iris Meck Communications, is helping put the seed sector’s women in the spotlight by creating the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference that takes place twice a year — once in Western Canada and once in the East.

The event brings women in agriculture and food together from across Canada and parts of the U.S. including business experts, motivational and inspirational leaders and industry representatives. It marked its fifth anniversary in Calgary earlier this year and has become known for putting women in seed in the spotlight.

Meck grew up on a farm in Manitoba. She went to the University of Manitoba to get a degree in agriculture and was offered a position at Cargill when she graduated. After a career working for major companies in the ag space, she started Iris Meck Communications in 2000 working with clients from small to major corporations. She now has over 40 years experience working in ag.

“I appreciated the entrepreneurial spirit in the people I worked with over the years, and I decided there was a real need in the industry to give women a voice in agriculture and to also recognize the contribution that women have made in the ag industry. There are great women we don’t hear about often enough, if at all,” she says.

So, she founded the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference to do just that.

“It’s an opportunity to learn from these influential women what leadership is all about. Whether you’re an executive, or running a farming operation, or you’re a student just graduating from university, it’s always great to hear someone’s story and learn from them.”

But people in the seed industry are also learning from Meck herself. She’s become an example of how one person can make a huge difference by going out on a limb and trying something new.

“I think the greatest challenge I’ve had in all my work career is knowing when to step out of my comfort zone. I did that when I started my own business. It was very comfortable working for other organizations — but taking that step from a regular paycheque to stepping out on your own and starting with nothing, that was a huge risk,” she adds.

“Thinking back, I wish I’d have done it a year sooner. Same thing with starting the Advancing Women Conference — it was a big risk to decide to do a conference on my own. With the support I’ve had, it’s been a massive success and I wish I’d done it six years ago rather than five.”

(Listen to Iris Meck speak about her vision for the future of the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference.)

The post Iris Meck isn’t Afraid to Step Out of Her Comfort Zone appeared first on Seed World.

The announcements of all the seed and crop protection mergers and acquisitions during the past two to three years might have left some with a less-than-optimistic outlook as it relates to product innovation and commercialization, and at what price point on the farm.

But for Adrian Percy, Bayer global head of R&D for the Crop Science division, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I think we are in a Golden Age … because a lot of things are coming together right now,” Percy said during Bayer’s annual AgVocacy Forum, which took place Feb. 25-26 in Anaheim, California. He noted the advancement of data-driven agriculture, plant breeding innovations and emphasis on understanding the soil microbiome.

Much of this work has only been going on since about 2013/14, he said, adding that it’s really early in the pipeline.

“The money that’s been invested will start to pay dividends in the next few years,” Percy said. “Then we will start to see a lot of new tools and approaches coming through the industry’s pipeline.”

The important thing, he said, is to get more investment in agriculture.

“[Agriculture has] lagged behind other industries in terms of the amount of investment,” Percy shared, noting that there’s been a real shift change in the past couple years. “I’d like to see even more money coming in, but with what we already have now, it’s going to be positive.”

You can listen to Percy here.

According to AgFunder, that investment is happening. In its “Agrifood Tech Investing Report: Mid Year Review 2017,” the company reported that agriculture biotechnology was the fourth largest category it tracked in the first half of 2017 (H1); however, year-over-year investment declined to $262 million and deal activity declined to 30 deals. Crop technologies still accounted for the majority of funding and deal activity. Here’s a brief excerpt from the report:

“Farmtech investment represented a quarter of total agrifood tech funding in H1-2017, reaching $1.13 billion, and accounting for seven of the year’s top 20 deals. The funding total represents a 56 percent year-over-year increase, but is still below the record-breaking 2015 when startups raised $1.3 billion in H1-2015. Deal activity contracted 14 percent year-over-year to 138 deals, with some large and later stage deals pushing the total up.

“The segment saw a few extra exits during the half with Indian irrigation giant Jain acquiring Australian water management and IoT platform Observant, and Monsanto’s Climate Corp acquiring another irrigation-focused data startup (and portfolio company) HydroBio of the U.S. The late summer acquisitions of Granular ($300m) and Blue River Tech ($305m) missed the cutoff for the H1 report, so we expect to report significantly more activity in the full year report.”

Bayer’s Percy said: “You can see that we are in a situation where technologies, such as new plant breeding innovations, are actually enabling small- and medium-sized companies to really make some progress. It’s probably healthier than it was 5 and 10 years ago because we didn’t have the investment that we are seeing today, through venture capital and private equity and science enabling companies to pop up and be quite successful.”

Just last week, Nat Graham, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota, spoke about the benefits of new plant breeding innovations, such as CRISPR-Cas9. Graham said this technology opens the door of opportunity for all plants and could mean greater diversity among more crops.

“We see gene editing as the way of the future for crop development,” Graham said, explaining that there’s a lower barrier to entry so he expects to see more products coming to market. “It’s all about less cost and less regulation, which means smaller businesses and academics can get into the business … and some of our improvements can actually make it into the market.”

Graham noted that his boss started Calyxt, a Minnesota company that combines gene editing with technical expertise to bring consumers and farmers added value to their food and crops.

Listen to Graham here:

Syngenta is also one of a number of companies taking advantage of this technology. Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, Syngenta head of Seeds Research, shares that they are working on drought tolerance for corn.

“We’ve edited a gene that we’ve found from our designer program,” Van Lookeren Campagne said. “Those plants can perform with less water, about 14 percent less water use.

“Genome editing is just a couple years old, so it will take a couple years before these products hit the market.”

DuPont Pioneer and the Broad Institute of MIT jointly hold the intellectual property to CRISPR-Cas9 and in late 2017 announced that they would nonexclusively license the technology.

“The promise of CRISPR-Cas9 technology in the hands of many will result in a wide array of benefits for the global food supply, ranging from higher and more stable yields of grains, fruits and vegetables for farmers; more nutritious, healthier and affordable foods for consumers; and, improved sustainability of agricultural systems for society,” says Neal Gutterson, DowDuPont vice president of Research & Development.

The post Is Agriculture Coming into a “Golden” Age? appeared first on Seed World.

Participants will learn about:
• The latest in soybean research
• New soybean varieties for the Prairies
• How you can advise grower customers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta who are thinking of growing soybeans

Speakers:
• Tom Warkentin, Professor, Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Research Program Chair, University of Saskatchewan
• Elroy Cober, Research Scientist, Soybean Breeding and Genetics, AAFC
• Brad Pinkerton, Manitoba Marketing Representative, SeCan

Sponsored by: SeCan, Canterra Seeds, 20/20 Seed Labs Inc.

The post View our New Retail Roundtable Webinar appeared first on Seed World.

Johan Van Asbrouck of Thailand’s Rhino Research, which seeks to become the global technology provider for the seed industry, sits down with us at the triennial conference of the International Society for Seed Science in Monterey, Calif., to discuss his thoughts on the big issues he feels the industry needs to tackle to be technologically successful in the future.

The post To Ensure its Success, the Seed Industry Must Deal with These 3 Issues appeared first on Seed World.