Argus Sustainable Fertilizer Americas Conference

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Jeremy Buchman is Senior Agronomy Manager for McCain Foods leading agronomy and sustainability efforts aimed to support the agricultural resilience of McCain’s grower partners and raw material supply chain through technological innovation and regenerative agricultural practices. Previous to joining McCain, Jeremy held agronomy roles with Black Gold Farms, one of the largest chip potato suppliers in North America and lead commercialization of new potato varieties at PepsiCo/Frito Lay in Wisconsin. Jeremy graduated from Washington State University with an MS in Entomology. Read less

Mariana Contreras is a Sustainability professional with over ten years of global experience in multinational companies such as KPMG, Coca-Cola, Grupo Bimbo, and Mars Petcare. During the last years, she has developed strategies and implemented responsible sourcing projects for palm oil, soy, sugar, cocoa, corn, packaging and indirect materials, and programs on regenerative agriculture, mainly for wheat in the North American region. Mariana is passionate about Sustainability; she is particularly interested in developing the skills of suppliers and farmers to advance in the challenges of Sustainability. Mariana has a Master's in Corporate Social Responsibility and a Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Business and Regenerative Agriculture. She is an alumnus of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and a member of the 2023 class of the Master of Studies in Sustainability Leadership of the CISL of the University of Cambridge. Read less

Hunter currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Phospholutions, Inc. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a BSc in Plant Sciences, where he was recognised as Top Entrepreneur at the university. He sits on the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Advisory Board for the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State University. Swisher founded Phospholutions, Inc. in 2016 to develop and commercialise solutions to improve the efficiency of global phosphorus use. Phospholutions, Inc. is headquartered in State College, PA. Read less

Cassidy Million, Ph.Dl., serves as the Director of Ag Science for Heliae® Agriculture and is responsible for overseeing agronomy training and product performance trials. Before joining Heliae® Agriculture, Dr. Million served as the Senior Agriculture Research Scientist at Monty’s Plant Food. Before this role she held a postdoctoral position with the USDA ARS Crop Production and Pest Control Research Division where she researched non-host resistance in wheat and barley. Prior, she performed research in the Integrated Plant Protection Unit of (SLU’s) Swedish University of the Agricultural Sciences’ Plant Protection Biology department. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biology from Indiana University Southeast and continued to earn her master’s degree in Plant Pathology from Ohio State University. Read less

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Catherine is the Innovation and Sustainability Director for Fertinagro Biotech International North America. Educated as an agronomist in France, with a major in Biotechnologies & Plant Physiology, she has held various positions in R&D, Quality and Procurement, with global leading food & ingredient companies (Danone, Kellogg’s, Kalsec), where she enabled the connection between crops and their transformation into finished consumer food products. Through her career she collaborated with Ag industries and farmers in Europe, Asia, South & North America, where she successfully built powerful partnerships for sustainable agricultural value chains. Catherine now puts this strong 30+ year experience to bring Fertinagro’s innovative technologies to the market and contribute to the development of efficient and sustainable agricultural value chains, starting with farms and growers. Read less

Rob Mikkelsen (Ph.D. Soil Science) is Director of Agronomy for Yara North America. He has served in a variety of professional positions including Soil Chemist at the TVA National Fertilizer Center, Professor at North Carolina State University, Vice President of the International Plant Nutrition Institute, Director at the African Plant Nutrition institute. His team at IPNI were the developers of the 4R nutrient stewardship framework. Read less

Matt Simpson is the CEO of Brazil Potash. Matt has taken Brazil Potash from the resource exploration stage to a near fully construction-ready state with key permitting, technical and EISA studies largely completed. From 2002 to 2010, Matt worked for the Iron Ore Company of Canada, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto where he held several senior management roles including Mine General Manager where he managed 650 employees and an annual budget of ~US$300M to break every historic production record during his tenure. Prior to joining IOC, Matt worked as a process engineer for Hatch Ltd. designing and constructing metallurgical refineries globally. Read less

Walter Sandoval graduated from National University of Asuncion with a BS in Biology. In 2013, Walter earned an MS in Microbiology from North Carolina State University (NCSU), through a Fulbright Scholarship. In 2016, Walter obtained his PhD in the same discipline, the year in which his doctoral thesis received the Kenneth R. Keller award, for excellence in doctoral dissertation. In 2017, Walter began his postdoc at the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department at Harvard University. In 2020, Walter returned to Paraguay, where he is faculty and currently leads the Microbial Biotechnology Lab at the National University of Asuncion. In the private sector, Walter is the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of MicroBios S.A. In 2022, Walter was awarded as a Global Fellow of the Eisenhower Fellowships. Read less

Karleigh Lewis is an Agronomy Account Manager with Livestock Water Recycling. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Agribusiness, an Equine Science Diploma, and a Business Certificate from Olds College. She is also a Certified Crop Advisor. In her role with LWR, Karleigh fosters strong relationships with the ag community and leads client development efforts in North America. Karleigh grew up on a small farm raising Charolais cattle, but it wasn’t long before her attention turned to horses. As a proud 4-H alumni, she has been immersed in agriculture her whole life, which has fueled her passion for the industry. When she’s not helping producers solve their manure headaches, you can find her riding her horse with barrel racing rodeo goals on the horizon. Read less

Landon has been the Chief Science Officer for Nano-Yield for the past eight years. He is the inventor on several Nano-Yield patents and has overseen the trialling and development of the Nano-Yield Nanoliquid products. Prior to working for Nano-Yield, Landon was the data manager on a $20 million USDA sustainable corn grant based at Iowa State University. Read less

Kuide (“Kwey-duh”) Qin currently works for Verdesian Life Sciences in Cary, North Carolina as the Chief Science Officer. At Verdesian, he leads R&D, regulatory, and new product development for nutrient use efficiency technologies including biostimulants and plant associated microbiomes to make farming more efficient and more sustainable. Prior to Verdesian, Kuide held scientist and leadership roles at Dow AgroSciences, and at Bayer Crop Science. Kuide graduated from University of Florida with a PhD specializing in colloid and surface chemistry. He has strong interest and ~20 years of experience in the research and development in agricultural inputs that contribute to sustainable agriculture and modern farming. Read less

Marcel is a soil-plant scientist with more than 20 years of experience in the development, enhancement and marketing of products for the conventional and organic markets. In his role as international chief technical lead at Monty’s Plant Food, he assesses products and teaches farmers about the benefits of Monty’s proprietary active humic technology and how it improves soil health and nutrient stabilisation. In 2010, Marcel founded a consultancy company that helps firms develop and launch products. He has also worked for a variety of multinational companies such as Chiquita, Bayer and Rio Tinto. He has a bachelor’s degree in agronomy, a master’s degree in crop protection in international commerce and a doctorate in soil and plant science. Read less