Davis, California, USA
March 29, 2016

The UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center congratulates the graduates of the first Seed Business 101 Horticulture course held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, February 22-26, 2016.

This session’s graduating class represented a strong and diverse mix of international participants from the following countries: Thailand, India, Japan, France, Philippines, Korea, China, Tanzania, and the USA.

Students included:

• Anne Sam (Thailand),
• Butwa Godluck (Tanzania),
• Caleb Orchard (Thailand),
• Chandra Thirukannapiran (Thailand),
• Dimple Sokartara (Thailand),
• Nanda Kumar (India),
• Piyush Kothari (India),
• Roderick Labay (Philippines) from East-West Seed ROH, Ltd.;
• Chanyayan Chiaranvanond (Thailand),
• Mithlesh Agarwal (India),
• Pitakpon Angsupanich (Thailand),
• Prirote Kietisirikajorn (Thailand),
• Sumitra Kantrong (Thailand),
• Supat Mekiyanon (Thailand) from Chia Tai Co. Ltd.;
• Erwan Ching (Thailand) and Mathias Luong (Thailand) from HM.Clause;
• Kairi Okuyama (Japan) and Toru Otsuka (Thailand) from Sakata Seed Corp.;
• Abigail Attavar (India), Indo American Hybrid Seeds;
• Naoto Shinozaki (Italy), Kagome Co., Ltd;
• Zhang Gang (China), Kaiping Clover Seed;
• Junho Kim (Korea), Nongwoo Bio Co.;
• Aileen Uy (Indonesia), PT Asian Hybrid Seeds Technologies; and
• Atsushi Sugimori (Japan), Takii & Co.

Course instructors included Maurice Smith, Pieter Vandenberg, and Mike Pereira. Participants also heard from expert guest speakers Anthony Tse, Clover Seeds; Ole Johansen, HM.Clause; Darush Struss, East West Seed ROH Ltd.; Bruno Lefeuvre, East-West Seed ROH Ltd., and Johan Van Asbrouck, Centor Group.

The UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center would like to recognize Chia Tai Co. Ltd., East-West Seed ROH Ltd., and HM.Clause, Thailand as joint sponsors of the course. Participants had an opportunity to tour and visit the Chia Tai Research Station and the East-West Seed Research Center. Their hospitality was key to the success of this session.

Seed Business 101is a one week course designed to expose participants to the five functional areas of a seed company (R&D, production, operations, sales and marketing and administration).  By creating a virtual seed company and case studies for each functional area, the course content is delivered in a very interactive way.  During each of the 4 case studies, participants assume a different functional responsibility within the company.  The course gives employees that are new to the seed industry a broad understanding of the major aspects of a seed company’s operations and cross-departmental knowledge of best practices for profitability. The course is taught by widely respected seed business executives with additional help of industry experts participating as guest speakers.

Upcoming sessions:

•  Seed Business 101 – Horticulture in Davis, California (December 5-9, 2016)
•  Seed Business 101 – Field Crops in Durham, North Carolina (September 12-16, 2016)
•  Seed Business 101 – Field Crops in Chicago, Illinois (December 2-6, 2016)

For registration and course details please visit sbc.ucdavis.edu or contact Rebeca Madrigal at rsmadrigal@ucdavis.edu.

Website: http://pba.ucdavis.edu/

Published: March 29, 2016