Mark Edge

Director of Collaborations for Developing Countries
Bayer

Mark Edge leads Bayer’s collaborations with public-private partnership projects to improve food security and rural livelihood among smallholder maize producers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The WEMA (Water Efficient Maize for Africa) project is the signature project he leads. The WEMA project develops new drought-tolerant and insect pest-protected maize hybrids and provides the technology royalty-free. It helps build technical capacity in Africa to use conventional and molecular breeding as well as biotechnology. Edge grew up on a corn, soybean, and livestock farm in Iowa. His background includes experience in biotech research and many aspects of managing seed business development as well as the grain export business. He has a BS from Iowa State University, an MS in genetics from the University of California at Davis, and an MBA from Drake University.