4 minute read
‘Always listen to the farmers’
Interview with East-West Seed founder Simon Groot
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Dr. Simon N. Groot, the founder of East-West Seed and 2019 World Food Prize laureate, is an inspiration to many in the seed industry for his transformative role in empowering millions of smallholder farmers in more than 60 countries to earn higher incomes through enhanced vegetable production, benefiting hundreds of millions of consumers with greater access to nutritious vegetables for healthy diets.
A tête-a-tête with Simon.
On seedsmanship
‘It’s all about common sense and connecting the dots. The seed business is nothing if not connected. Seeds are produced and distributed locally, regionally, and internationally. Seedsmanship is about understanding what can work in the global seed arena while understanding the needs of farmers, traders, and consumers.
For instance, in Asia, the OP yardlong bean is very valuable. We have excellent varieties with good resistance properties. This can quickly be introduced in Africa. It grows so well in all parts of tropical Africa. It provides high-quality nutrition. It grows very well as a single crop. As
East-West Seed, we must seize the opportunity here. It’s also the crop of Southern India. Another crop is ridge gourd. We tackled the fungal disease resistance with a hybrid introduction in this category. India had never heard about hybrid ridge gourd. When we introduced it in India, our hybrid was very successful. Farmers in West India and Bangladesh accepted our East-West Seed ridge gourd hybrid.
It is this kind of exploratory thinking that forms the basis of seedsmanship. This is even before thinking about the science part of it. So it is not all about business. It’s about meeting the needs of the farmer and the market partners. Now, we would like to maintain the image that we are true friends of the farmer.’
On technology
‘I am a common sense person and try to look at issues through the eyes of a farmer. I would tend to say: don’t go too far away with scientific options. At the same time, scientists have come up with many sophisticated technologies and theories. We have to think about these. To what extent does this scientific development impact value chain development? Does it create value?
That should not be our business, except in the R&D, who would look at it to see if it would create added value for the farmer. Do we need to consider whether these technological theories add commercial value? We need to realistically look at these theories and technologies on how we can improve the world.’
Asked what the future holds, Simon hardly pauses.
‘Looking at what has been done in these 40 years, we can already see that much more is possible. The development role of the seed business has
been underestimated. Reliable seed is the first 100% need that must be available before further development can take place. And who can provide that seed except for seed companies who get their revenues from the market and then plough those funds back into the breeding efforts in a structured, market-oriented way? The private sector approach yields far superior results to public development schemes. We provide varietal innovation, the farmers, supported by EWS Knowledge Transfer, provide improved farming systems, and the result can be, as we can now see, phenomenal market growth and development.
After four decades, we now know this: if the team of plant breeders, seed producers, seed technologists, and field representatives do their jobs right, incredible and far-reaching market developments are bound to follow.’
Moving forward
‘The superiority of hybrids versus open pollinated varieties in tropical vegetables has been very convincing regarding performance/cost ratios. Hybrids excel under adverse growing conditions. We have plenty of adverse conditions in vegetable farming in the tropics, particularly with extreme temperatures and high relative humidity. I foresee a rapid development of hybrids, especially in longer cycle Brassicas, such as white cabbage and Chinese cabbage, and in many local cucurbits and solanaceous crops. The hybrids will also permit a quick combination of available genetic disease tolerance, which is the top priority of any tropical vegetable plant breeder.
Our 40-year experience taught us the lesson that “rainy season vegetable farming’’ turned out to be one of the major innovations. Both breeding the varieties for these difficult climatic conditions and the innovations in farming technologies (KT) have created major opportunities for farmer
income growth in South East Asia. Our early experiences in Africa are showing similar very promising results.
Simple mass selection and hybrid variety development hold the key. But they must be done with the knowledge of the specific needs of consumers and the farmers. Plant breeding cannot be done in isolation – it requires a permanent dialogue with producers and consumers. The vegetable industry in general and the seed industry as an integral part of it can develop much faster with a solid institutional support system from the public sector.’
Next big project
‘We are excited at the prospect of exploring Africa to introduce more of our crops. It is so full of opportunity! The female farmers’ acceptance of Knowledge Transfer offers them some innovation to improve their lives and income. Our KT team has made significant headway. In Nigeria, for example, villages have come together to adopt KT practices for vegetable cultivation. It feels so good to see the acceptance of KT, mostly among female Nigerian farmers who face many challenges on the social and cultural fronts. It is good to know that they can find their feet with vegetable farming.’
Message
‘Start recognizing that we are increasingly a company that needs all its internal capacities to develop skills. We need to look internally, link to what works best, and explore whether we could bring the same to another culture or region. This kind of integration is not easy but very beneficial in the long term. I’ve always believed we have a lot of knowledge and resources within our own company that can be used adequately.’
