Mr. Simon Groot
Founder, East-West Seed
Simon N. Groot has empowered millions of smallholder farmers in more than 60 countries to earn greater incomes through enhanced vegetable production, benefitting hundreds of millions of consumers with greater access to nutritious vegetables. As founder and leader of East-West Seed, his initiative over the past four decades has developed a dynamic, smallholder-centric tropical vegetable seed industry, starting in Southeast Asia and spreading through Asia, Africa and Latin America. Groot, a sixth-generation seedsman, founded East-West Seed in 1982 in the Philippines, establishing the first market-oriented vegetable seeds breeding company with smallholders as the main client base.