Visit of the Ambassador of India to KeyGene

HE Mrs. Reenat Sandu, flanked and supported by KeyGene’s Alex Bergsma, transfers from in vitro culture to soil a banana plantlet, grown from one of the embryos rescued after a cross between two banana types.

On Friday, September 16, 2022, Her Excellency Mrs. Reenat Sandhu, Ambassador of India to the kingdom of the Netherlands along with the First secretary Mr. Satya Pinisetty , visited KeyGene’s headquarters in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Mrs Sandhu was intrigued by some of KeyGene’s ground breaking research projects and successes together with Indian partners in key crops like Rice, Corn etc.

With this visit, Mrs. Sandhu aimed to learn more about KeyGene and the collaboration KeyGene has with agro-food companies in India. She was keen in understanding how our technologies and innovations bring value to our Indian partners. She also wanted to learn how she could further extend her support with challenges, if any, faced in doing business with India and to further enable business growth for KeyGene.

During her visit, Mrs. Sandhu was invited to take part in the banana research at KeyGene. India is the largest producer of bananas worldwide, cultivating bananas especially for consumption in India itself. Like many other countries, India is threatened by the devastating fusarium wilt disease, also known as Panama disease. Together with partners, the banana research team at KeyGene is developing banana varieties with resistance against the soil borne fusarium wilt and the leaf disease Black sigatoka.

“It was a pleasure to visit KeyGene in Wageningen and see first hand the excellent technological research & innovation being carried out by them for crop improvement and increasing crop yields. We look forward to their contribution in further enhancing collaboration between India and Netherlands in the agriculture sector. I wish them the very best in their endeavors.” said HE Mrs. Reenat Sandhu.