Five Points, California, USA
December 11, 2014
-- S&W Seed Company (Nasdaq: SANW) today announced that alfalfa seed industry veteran and current member of the Board of Directors, Mark Harvey, has been appointed Chairman of S&W's Board of Directors, effective December 9, 2014. Mr. Harvey, age 59, was appointed following the retirement of current board chairman, Grover Wickersham, who will remain a member of the Board of Directors.
Mark Harvey commented, "I am extremely pleased to take over as Chairman of S&W Seed Company. S&W is establishing itself as a leader in the alfalfa seed industry, looking to capitalize off some very important macro trends, including the desire by an expanding global population to increase the protein in their diets. This ability for a global farming community to meet this expanding demand is being met with the constraints of decreasing arable land to be farmed on and an increase in crops being utilized for other purposes, such as energy utilization. S&W boasts some of the world's leading alfalfa seed genetics and is in a prime position to leverage off both of these dynamics to expand its share of the market for years to come. We also have a significant opportunity within the stevia industry to establish a leadership position by breeding and developing unique varieties that can address very specific end market uses, such as the commercial processing or fresh and dry leaf markets."
Mr. Harvey became a member of the Board of Directors of S&W Seed Company following the Company's acquisition of Seed Genetics International in April 2013. Mr. Harvey has more than 35 years of experience in production processing and marketing of seed to many parts of the world, particularly branded alfalfa and clover. Mr. Harvey managed a 10,000 acre family farm producing seed, wheat and pulse crops, along with wool and beef, from 1976 until 1996 when the company he founded, Paramount Seeds, was sold to Elders Ltd. While with Elders, Mr. Harvey was manager of their national and international seed business from 1996 until 2001. In 2002, he was one the founding members of Seed Genetics International where he focused primarily on marketing and distribution. Mr. Harvey was educated at Cunderdin Agricultural College in West Australia.
Mr. Harvey concluded, "I would like to thank Grover Wickersham for his many years of service as chairman, and look forward to working closely with the management and fellow board members to achieve the goals that are set out by this company that we believe will be drivers of increased shareholder value for years to come."
&W Seed Company also announced today that Mark Wong, Chairman of Agrivida, has been elected to its Board of Directors at the 2014 annual meeting of its stockholders on December 9, 2014.
Mark Wong has more than 35 years of experience in agribusiness with particular expertise in technology integration and commercialization. Since 2008, he has been Chairman of the Board or CEO of Agrivida, a company that is developing and commercializing high-performance products that incorporate novel, regulated proteins precisely engineered for specific applications in a variety of markets, including animal nutrition, bio-based fuels and chemicals, and industrial enzymes. Concurrently, from 2009 to the present, he is a founding partner at Colorado Financial Holdings, a private venture investment and investment bank that specializes in the agricultural, energy and biotechnology sectors. From 1999 to 2006, he was founder and CEO of Emergent Genetics, Inc., an international seed biotech company. Previous to that Mr. Wong founded and/or served as Chairman or President at companies ranging from Agrigenetics (Founder and COO), a seed and biotechnology company, and BioFuel Energy Corp. (Chairman), a corn ethanol company. Mr. Wong has extensive experience in operations management, technology assessment, business acquisition and divestiture, and international business. Mr. Wong holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of Finance.
Mark Harvey, chairman of the board of S&W Seed Company, commented, "We are pleased that someone with agriculture industry expertise the caliber of Mark Wong is joining the Board of S&W Seed Company. Mark has a strong background of developing ag businesses with leading biotechnology traits that have subsequently been acquired by a number of the world's largest seed companies. As S&W advances in the deployment and integration of biotech capabilities into its leading seed varieties, Mark's experience and industry relationships should prove to be extremely valuable for S&W Seed Company."
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