2024

• Bayer Vegetable Seeds
  As an innovative vegetable seed company who’s also a world leader in human health and nutrition and horticulture, we are driven to deliver health for all and hunger for none.
  But we can’t do it alone. Working together, we can ensure that every seed grows beautifully, harvests efficiently, sells quickly, transports easily, and provides the flavor people want – and the nutrition they need. Together, let’s work to grow your business – so that we can grow a healthier world.
  With more than 20 different crops and thousands of innovative vegetable seed selections, we’re proud to support a diverse range of growers around the world. Together, we’re growing your business and supporting a healthier world.
   
• BASF | Nunhems
  BASF's Vegetable Seeds Business, featuring the Nunhems brand, offers more than vegetable seeds. We offer partnerships and customer-oriented solutions for the entire vegetable value chain including growers, processors, plant raisers, dealers, traders, retailers and food service industry – tailored to consumer needs and trends.
   
• Syngenta Vegetable Seeds
  We’re a global innovation powerhouse with local, passionate,
  expert teams collaborating with farmers in every corner of the world to deliver solutions and create market opportunities.
  Our high-technology seeds help mitigate risks such as disease, insect, and climate pressures and allow farmers to meet the ever-growing demand for food and fuel, all while using fewer inputs and taking care of the land and our resources.
  We have a team of 12,000 seed experts from research and seed development to production to logistics to sales and marketing, serving farmers in more than 100 countries
  Our network of more than 150 R&D and Production sites collaborate with universities, incubators, scientists and production growers to invest $1.4B USD annually to bring next-generation innovations to the farm. This includes our partnerships with 51,000+ production growers across 26 countries to produce the demand for our seed.
   

Anahit Galstyan Principal Scientist Genomics BASF	Nelson Davila Olivas Lead Molecular Genetics BASF	Rebecca Turner Senior Scientist PreBreeding BASF
Simerjot Virdi Veg Pipeline Enablement Associate, US East Bayer	Mark Newell Head of US Solanaceae Product Development Breeding Bayer
Bruno Foncelle Head of Americas Vegetables Seeds Development Syngenta	Stephanie Sjoberg Breeding Project Lead, Processing Tomato Syngenta	Brindha Narasimhamoorthy Germplasm Development Lead, Cucurbits, Americas Syngenta

 

Student track
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Intro to ASTA for Students	1:30 PM - 2:00 PM
What's Different About Leadership in the Seed Industry?	2:45 PM - 4:15 PM
Get to Know ASTA	4:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Welcome Reception	5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Monday, June 17, 2024
Opening General Session and ASTA Annual Meeting	9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
LEAD Session: Student Committee	10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Leadership Development Workshop: GROWing Leaders	11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
GROWing Our Community	1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Student Career Fair and Poster Presentations	4:00 PM - 5:15 PM

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.
 

BASF | Nunhems

BASF's Vegetable Seeds Business, featuring the Nunhems brand, offers more than vegetable seeds. We offer partnerships and customer-oriented solutions for the entire vegetable value chain including growers, processors, plant raisers, dealers, traders, retailers and food service industry – tailored to consumer needs and trends.

Photo taken when Seed Central took students & postdocs to visit BASF | Nunhems in May 2018

Under the Nunhems brand, Bayer offers expert advice and high-quality seed varieties of about 25 vegetable crops. With more than 2,000 employees, we are present in all major vegetable production areas around the globe. We are dedicated to producing market-oriented varieties and seed products, and more than just that. We are oriented towards customers, and towards sharing value-added genetics, services and expertise to help them succeed.

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

Bayer Vegetable Seeds

As an innovative vegetable seed company who’s also a world leader in human health and nutrition and horticulture, we are driven to deliver health for all and hunger for none.

But we can’t do it alone. Working together, we can ensure that every seed grows beautifully, harvests efficiently, sells quickly, transports easily, and provides the flavor people want – and the nutrition they need. Together, let’s work to grow your business – so that we can grow a healthier world.
With more than 20 different crops and thousands of innovative vegetable seed selections, we’re proud to support a diverse range of growers around the world. Together, we’re growing your business and supporting a healthier world.

A global leader, the company researches and develops over 20 different crops with over 2,200 varieties of seeds. These innovative seeds are marketed to commercial vegetable growers, dealers, distributors, home garden seed providers and wholesalers in more than 150 countries and territories.

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

Founded in 1982 by Dutch seedsman and 2019 World Food Prize Laureate Simon Groot, East-West Seed is one of the world’s leading vegetable seed companies in Asia and expanding rapidly in Africa and Latin America. The privately-owned company has played an important role in the development and improvement of tropical vegetable varieties that are adapted to tropical markets and growing conditions. Its mission is to provide innovative products and services that help to improve the livelihood of vegetable farmers. In addition, East-West Seed trains vegetable farmers in order to help maximize their yield and income through better knowledge on vegetable production and farming skills.

In 2019 East-West Seed ranked #1 on the Access to Seeds Index for Global Seed Companies and #1 for South and Southeast Asia Index.
In 2020, it ranked #28 in Fortune’s Change the World list of companies that are doing well by doing good.

East-West Seed has its headquarters in Nonthaburi, Thailand. The company employs about 5,000 people and has 17 R&D stations in 7 countries. With exports to over 60 countries in tropical areas, East-West Seed serves nearly 20 million farmers around the world

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

The Kraft Heinz Company is the third-largest food and beverage company in North America and the fifth-largest food and beverage company in the world, with eight $1 billion+ brands. A globally trusted producer of delicious foods, The Kraft Heinz Company provides high quality, great taste and nutrition for all eating occasions whether at home, in restaurants or on the go.
KraftHeinz also develops processing tomato varieties, which are sold and used in California and around the world.

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

iWorkshop

As an innovative vegetable seed company who’s also a world leader in human health and nutrition and horticulture, we are driven to deliver health for all and hunger for none.
But we can’t do it alone. Working together, we can ensure that every seed grows beautifully, harvests efficiently, sells quickly, transports easily, and provides the flavor people want – and the nutrition they need. Together, let’s work to grow your business – so that we can grow a healthier world.
With more than 20 different crops and thousands of innovative vegetable seed selections, we’re proud to support a diverse range of growers around the world. Together, we’re growing your business and supporting a healthier world.

Ewa Urbanczyk-Wochniak Head of Seed & Trait Risk Assessment & Project Strategy Bayer Crop Science	Laura McConnell Science Fellow Bayer Crop Science	Sherry Heins Global Regulatory Manager Bayer Cro Science

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

• GreenVenus
  Innovation for Healthier People and Planet
  With next-generation plant propagation and speed breeding technologies, GreenVenus, LLC is improving the quality of food for consumers while reducing food waste and preserving valuable resources.
  Our Focus
  Specialty crops are at the core of who we are. These crops present immense opportunities for advancement in genetics. In addition, the power of our technology platforms allows us to bring innovation to any specialty crop category and we are excited about the developing pipelines of both lettuce and yellow peas.
   
• KWS Saat
  Seeds and services for better yield
  Our high-yield seeds and trusted knowledge have made us the farmers’ partner for generations. We contribute to nutrition solutions for a steadily growing world population by constantly improving genetic potential through excellent research and offering expert services to farmers through the entire year. Our shared success is the result of a corporate culture that offers entrepreneurial freedom and supports dedicated talent that develops solutions.
   
• The Morning Star Company
  In 1970, Chris Rufer began Morning Star as a one-truck owner-operator company in California’s Central Valley, hauling tomatoes from fields to canneries.
  Today, Morning Star operates three factories with the largest production scale in the world, with resources solely dedicated to tomatoes. We supply over 40 percent of national markets with ingredient tomato paste and diced tomatoes. We provide bulk-ingredient products to food manufacturers and pouch and can ingredient and finished products to the food service and retail trade. We are actively involved in the global tomato industry and ongoing tomato research, and we have pioneered changes in production technology that have helped increase efficiencies throughout the industry. Our sales of tomato products are over $800 million annually. And we still haul our tomatoes from the fields – just as our owner began his journey in 1970.
  Our mission is, and has always been, to produce tomato products which consistently achieve the quality and service expectations of our customers in a cost-effective, environmentally responsible manner.
   

Ariane Tremblay Molecular Biology Lead GreenVenus	TBA GreenVenus	TBA GreenVenus	TBA GreenVenus
Viktor Korzun KWS Saat Global Lead Scientific Affairs	Aurelie Bak KWS Saat Senior Research Lead Trait Development Insect Resistance	TBA KWS Saat	TBA KWS Saat
Joe Bauer Learning & Development The Morning Star Company	Sriram Vidyarthi R&D Director The Morning Star Company	Jake Sherman Economist The Morning Star Company	Erik Sunderbruch Marketing & Business Development The Morning Star Company

Open to all

Seed Central hosts
the California Seed Association's
Fall Student Tour
for lunch, industry testimonials,
and a n

With students from UC Davis, Cal-Poly, California State University Chico / Fresno / Monterey Bay, Woodland Community College, and Woodland high schools.

Seeds and services for better yield
Our high-yield seeds and trusted knowledge have made us the farmers’ partner for generations. We contribute to nutrition solutions for a steadily growing world population by constantly improving genetic potential through excellent research and offering expert services to farmers through the entire year. Our shared success is the result of a corporate culture that offers entrepreneurial freedom and supports dedicated talent that develops solutions.

Viktor Korzun KWS Saat Global Lead Scientific Affairs	Aurelie Bak KWS Saat Senior Research Lead Trait Development Insect Resistance	TBA KWS Saat	TBA KWS Saat

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

Innovation for Healthier People and Planet
With next-generation plant propagation and speed breeding technologies, GreenVenus, LLC is improving the quality of food for consumers while reducing food waste and preserving valuable resources.
Our Focus
Specialty crops are at the core of who we are. These crops present immense opportunities for advancement in genetics. In addition, the power of our technology platforms allows us to bring innovation to any specialty crop category and we are excited about the developing pipelines of both lettuce and yellow peas.

Ariane Tremblay Molecular Biology Lead GreenVenus	TBA GreenVenus	TBA GreenVenus	TBA GreenVenus

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.

Lyndsey Ruiz Senior Career Advisor, Internship & Career Center UC Davis	Jos van Boxtel Senior Scientist Origin Prime LLC (read the John Innes Center article)	TBA	TBA	TBA

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org

Student track program TBA.

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.
 

2025

Student track program TBA.

Information: fkorn@seedcentral.org.