In 1976 my brother Jos and I were summoned
back form Germany and Belgium to become members of the board
of the Barenbrug Group in the Netherlands, together with Theo
Brink and Ton Hoefnagel. I was to manage research and
production. We were a team.
My father retired from active management in
1977 and I was appointed CEO. Since 1987 I have continued the
company as main shareholder.
In the eighties, a lot of multinationals such
as Shell and British Petroleum went into seeds. Any seeds.
Biotechnology was the word of those days. The Barenbrug Group
was already accustomed to sharing research with large
companies, but, in this respect, we were mainly interested in
digestibility of forage grasses. Any percentage of improvement
in that field will reduce the production of manure by millions
of tons worldwide. Especially in countries such as The
Netherlands, where cattle outnumbers the human population,
environmental awareness was on the rise.
The multinational Unilever came along at the
right time. Their Agro Division was in the process of building
a worldwide seed company. Barenbrug would become part of this
endeavour. To guarantee the continuity of the company I
decided to sell only 60 % of the company.
