Syngenta Canada names head of sales, crop protection

Aug 02, 2023

Syngenta Canada Inc. has named Shaun Vey as head of sales, crop protection effective August 1, 2023. He will lead the national sales and key account team from the company’s office in Calgary, Alberta, and serve on the organization’s leadership team.

“Shaun has a deep passion for agriculture, building strong relationships, and being part of a collaborative team. Over many years of working with Shaun, I have come to appreciate his leadership skills, strategic mindset, sharp business acumen, and entrepreneurial approach,” Says Trevor Heck, president of Syngenta Canada.

Vey has held various roles at Syngenta for the past 14 years, primarily with the Canadian organization. Most recently, he gained international experience as head of narketing for Syngenta UK, Ireland & Nordics. In his new role, Vey will work with his team across nine provinces to build best-in-class customer experience, delivering innovative solutions with a focus on sustainability and quality.

“It’s great to be back with the Canadian team, serving growers and working with retail partners. I look forward to deepening our customer and industry relationships and advancing Canadian agriculture,” says Vey. “I’m grateful for the many opportunities throughout my Syngenta career that have prepared me for this role.”

Vey first joined Syngenta Canada as an intern. He then worked full-time as a territory sales representative based in West-Central Saskatchewan. Following this, he moved to the product management team where he was responsible for a broad range of product portfolios including non-selective herbicides, insecticides, cereal seed, canola seed, and finally as product lead for Seedcare. In 2019, Vey was promoted to the role of disease control business manager, leading the fungicide business in Canada and the launch of the Miravis portfolio. In 2021, he relocated with his family to Cambridge, England where he led the marketing teams in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

Vey has a Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness from the University of Saskatchewan and an Executive MBA from Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

He succeeds Duane Johnson who retired in May after 33 years with Syngenta and its legacy companies.

Source : The Grower

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators