Sakata Celebrates Completion of Woodland Innovation Center

Sakata is Excited to Announce the Opening of the Sakata Seed America Woodland Innovation Center!


Since announcing plans on March 1st, 2016, the Sakata Seed America Woodland Innovation Center has been under construction to establish all new infrastructure on a sixteen acre site that will enable the company to consolidate and expand R&D, production and marketing activities on a single, state-of-the-art campus, flexible for future expansion.

The Sakata Seed America Woodland Innovation Center is an $18.5M investment, including 219 acres of prime agricultural land in Yolo county. The site includes multiple buildings designed by Matthew Shigihara, principle architect with Stantec Architecture of Sacramento. The main buildings include a Head House for research and development that allows for washing and drying of breeder seed; multiple hi-tech greenhouses for trialing important Sakata crops, like Pepper, Tomato, Watermelon and Melon, a Farm Shop for production maintenance and equipment, drying of seed, and other farm related activities, a Washery building for washing, fluming, and drying all types of wet seed, a 25,000 square foot warehouse housing the latest technology in seed processing equipment and a LEED certified office building.

The facility was officially inaugurated on Thursday, September 13, 2018, when Sakata Seed America hosted a Grand Opening ceremony on site. Attendees included Dave Armstrong, President of Sakata Seed America, Hiroshi Sakata, President of Sakata Seed Corporation, as well as California state assembly members, the Japanese consulate, media and Sakata customers and business partners. The event’s festivities included a virtual tour of the site (video below), as well as performance by Japanese drummers and a traditional Japanese Sake Ceremony.