Role purpose

• Accountable and responsible for producing seeds and achieving expected yield, quality, cost and at the right time.
• Responsible to deliver reliable seed from the field to the plant.
• Accountable for managing professional relationships with growers, toller, other external parties and alignment with internal stakeholders.
• Manage all aspects of safety and compliance, contractual agreements, propose and obtain approvals on grower pricing and contract guidelines and strategies.

Key responsibilities and tasks

• Responsible for the grower selection process to achieve higher production reliability which includes grower background check, review previous reliability and performance, isolation distance, suitability of the production area etc.
• Ensure that all the prework is done before the start of each production cycle and grower is prepared to start the production within the optimum sowing window.
• Responsible for all aspect of Seed Production, Parental seed receiving, Nursery, Crop Management, Harvest and Delivery are followed as per the internal guidelines.

Manage operational expenses, grower costs and CAPEX within company targets.

• Accountable and responsible for maintaining grower relationship including negotiation of grower contracts, conciliation of all the production issues, etc.
• Ensures planned orders are accepted within target timelines, AOAs are created, and crops are placed in a manner to meet targeted contract quality, quality, cost and timeliness requirements.

Production Data and Analysis – Review quantity, quality, cost and timeliness data and address areas for improvement, simplification, optimization, or expansion of our business, including Grower Performance analysis, grower pricing strategies.

• Aim for competitive base rates and align with Crop Placement Managers.
• Responsible for timely grower settlement and coordinate / support to resolve any issue with grower / vendors.
• Ensure that seeds are shipped to processing plant along with necessary documentation.
• Liaising with local authorities for field inspection and arranging required phyto-certificates for seed shipments
• Providing technical instruction and support / advise to growers and their team related to growing seeds crops – crop management pre/post-harvesting etc.
• Updating information in Velocity Scout, SAP, and other tools.
• Innovation. Work with Production Research personnel to identify and address projects to improve reliability, quality, and/or cost.
• Ensure external and internal compliance in our operations, including HSE, Human Rights, Business conduct, PGRP, NAFI, SKAL, QMS, CSP etc.

Key Working Relations:

• Member of Regional VS PS Seed Production team
• Interfaces with: VS PS Global Production Team, Global Supply Chain, Logistics, Seed Technology / PR, Trade & Compliance, Data & Analytics, Product Management, MD, Quality, Finance / Controlling, IT

Experience, Skills, and Qualifications

• BSc degree (Agronomy, Agriculture, Horticulture etc) with 5+ years’ experience in seed industry.
• Excellent human relation and effective communication skills required.
• Experience in working with cross functional team, preferred.
• Ability to influence all levels in the organization.
• Customer focus, innovation & experimentation, collaboration and implementation of best practices, knowledge sharing.
• Process Oriented and Results Orientated.
• Negotiations Skills, Plans and Aligns.
• Ability to learn and use digital and analytic tools.
• Instill Trusts (with and Growers and other stakeholders).
• Courage & candor, business insight.