Joe DeVries holds a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Cornell University (1994) and has been at the forefront of African agricultural development for over 30 years. His career has focused on strengthening national agricultural research systems and ensuring that smallholder farmers have access to improved crop varieties and quality seeds. His work has spanned diverse and challenging contexts: in the 1980s, he built irrigation schemes in the drought-ravaged Sahel; in the 1990s, he designed and led agricultural relief and recovery initiatives in Mozambique and in numerous other countries affected by conflict, war, and complex humanitarian emergencies.
In 1997, he joined The Rockefeller Foundation, where he turned his focus to breeding and seed systems development as a long-term, sustainable solution to hunger and low crop productivity among smallholder farmers. In 2006, while serving as Deputy Director at The Rockefeller Foundation, Joe co-founded the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). There, he helped design and lead the organization’s flagship $150 million initiative, the Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS). Under his leadership, PASS helped to build 112 private seed companies, produced over 602,000 metric tons of certified seed, and reached approximately 15 million smallholder farmers across 19 African countries. The program also strengthened human and institutional capacity by training more than 650 Ph.D. and M.Sc. fellows, revitalizing 12 crop improvement centers, engaged 25,000 village-based extension workers and agro-dealers, and establishing two venture capital funds managing over $90 million to catalyze seed sector growth.
During his tenure at AGRA, where he was the Vice President for Program Development, Joe spearheaded several initiatives to strengthen Africa’s agricultural innovation system. These included the impact investment funds Pearl Capital Partners and Injaro Agricultural Capital Holdings, as well as the African Seed Investment Fund and the Seeds for Impact Fund. He also helped establish major centers for plant breeding and seed sector capacity development, including the African Centre for Crop Improvement at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement at the University of Ghana, and the Seed Enterprise Management Institute at the University of Nairobi.
In 2019, Joe founded Seed Systems Group (SSG) which is dedicated to developing sustainable seed supply systems in left-behind countries in Africa’s emerging Green Revolution. As the president of SSG until his transition in October 2025, he led numerous transformative seed systems development initiatives across 15 African countries, including Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, and Togo. These initiatives supported the growth of 50 private seed companies, provided scholarships to 10 MSc. students, trained and supported 449 agro-dealers, and reached over one million smallholder farmers with improved seeds.
