East-West Seed and Seminis announce strategic collaboration in Indonesia

East-West Seed and Seminis will launch an exclusive collaboration that will expand the range of seed products offered by EWS to vegetable farmers in Indonesia, bringing fresh opportunities for the country’s vegetable production sector dominated by small-scale farmers.

This collaboration applies to hot pepper, tomato and other vegetable seed varieties, including the popular hot pepper varieties known by their registered variety denominations of “TM999”, “Hot Chili” and “Krida”.

These varieties were developed by Seminis and previously distributed by third parties. Beginning August 2013, they will be relaunched under East-West Seed’s “Cap Panah Merah” brand and become available exclusively from East-West Seed. East-West Seed will handle all sales, marketing, promotion and production of products under this collaboration.

“We are excited to see the strong brand of East-West Seed in Indonesia combined with the superb germplasm of Seminis. This partnership will bring together our marketing and business expertise, along with an excellent portfolio of products – all in the effort to better serve our farmer customers,” said Glenn Pardede, Managing Director of PT East West Seed Indonesia.

There is a wide window of opportunity for growth in Indonesia’s vegetable farming sector. Presently the area harvested to vegetables is 1.05 million hectares, producing 10 million tones of fresh vegetables, according to the UN-FAO.

Vegetable consumption in the country could still be vastly improved. The world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia has by far the highest population in Southeast Asia at 240 million. Indonesians consume vegetables at an average of 40kg per capita per year, below the Southeast Asia average of 50-60 kgs per capita per year.

“More and more farmers are seeing the potential for good quality seeds which will impact vegetable production significantly. This distribution partnership will ensure better coverage and efficiency in making quality vegetable seed varieties available to famers in Indonesia. This fits with our mission to provide innovative products and services that help increase farmers’ income and promote the growth and quality of the vegetable farming industry,” he added.

“We are thrilled about the opportunity to partner with East-West Seed in Indonesia,” said Ben Hoodless, Seminis Asia Pacific Business Lead.

“Our focus will remain on leveraging our leading R&D capabilities to develop and trial new innovative products for Indonesian growers, while supporting our new partner East-West Seed to produce, market and distribute the highest quality seeds to the market,” he added.Beyond this marketing partnership in Indonesia, the two parties East-West Seed and Seminis remain independent and separately existing companies.