Syngenta Seedcare: Delivers Value to Customers beyond Seed Protection

Syngenta Seedcare is a leader in innovative seed treatment solutions, and its commitment to protect seeds is unmatched. Syngenta Seedcare offers an industry leading solution based on its world-class research, product development and support capabilities. “We call it a three-pillar offer P.A.S. (Products – Application –Services) which delivers value to our customers BEYOND SEED PROTECTION™,” said Sidney Deng, Head of Seedcare China at Syngenta, in an interview with AgroPages. Serving both seed companies and traditional channels, Syngenta integrates excellent seed treatment products with high-quality coating processing as well as demand creation with customers to ensure the good seed sales and filed performance and win the reputation and trust of customers.

Deng continued, “In China, Syngenta’s extensive seed treatment product line covers major crops such as corn and wheat. We have a professional team which includes key account sales, product support, field technical support and Seedcare institute. Facing the increasing demand for seed treatment product by growers and industries, Syngenta Seedcare is committed to provide more innovative products which could offer better protection to seeds, and escort high yield and quality of the crops.”

In terms of various market forecast data, the seed treatment industry has a promising prospect. What do you think are the main factors to drive the market growth?

The purpose of seed treatment is to protect seeds. My understanding is that if the seeds market value increases by the technology like biotechnology and precision seeding, the seed treatment will be increased as well as one of the key supporting technologies for seed protection. This is the major factor driving market growth. The second factor is that due to frequent occurrence and high pressure of diseases and insect pests in the early stage of agricultural production, seed treatment can help to protect the seeds and establish strong seedlings against these problems. The third factor is that seed protection can help farmers save labor, improve the efficiency of production and peace of mind, especially in the emerging agricultural market. Last but not the least, new product introduction will increase the market value by better control the pain point of the planting 

What do you think are the bottlenecks in technology and application of seed treatment?

Seed treatment is widely used in developed agricultural countries and is one of the measures to support mechanized agriculture. Most seeds are coated in large scale by seed companies or regional distributors there. In agricultural developing countries, the lack of awareness and poor application rate of seed treatment technology are the major bottlenecks. In China, the hybrid seeds such as corn and cotton are mainly coated by seed companies, while the other seeds are basically coated by farmers themselves or by channel retailers, which limits the industry rapid development due to low operation and efficiency. In addition, seed treatment suppliers need run the seed safety test and effect test before launch, results in the slow new product development, and negative impact on the awareness build and promotion practice.

Please introduce the characteristics of Syngenta's seed treatment business and its recent research and development priorities. What are the company's advanced concepts and specific project practices? What is the reason why Syngenta has always been a leader in seed treatment? 

Syngenta Seedcare is the market leader in seed treatment industry, with more than 30% market share in global level. Our products cover a wide range of application targets including disease, insect, nematode control and abiotic stress management. As an innovation-driven company, it is our goal and advantage to develop seed treatment products with new active ingredients/new mode of action. In addition to developing new active ingredients, biocontrols and biostimulant are also in the pipeline. Syngenta Seedcare offers an industry leading solution based on its world-class research, product development and support capabilities. We call it a three-pillar offer P.A.S. (Products – Application –Services) which delivers value to our customers BEYOND SEED PROTECTION™. Serving both seed companies and traditional channels, Syngenta integrates excellent seed treatment products with high-quality coating processing as well as demand creation with customers to ensure the good seed sales and filed performance and win the reputation and trust of customers.

Take an example that is happening in China, working with customers, Syngenta Seedcare team tested Vibrance Maxx RFC on dry rice seed coating since 2015, and developed a new seed nursery practice to save traditional soaking and incubation. Compared with the existing operation, the benefit is extend sowing application window, labor saving and even better seedlings with strong roots, which has been well recognized and welcomed  from large farmers in Northeast China and Yangtze river area. It is a good example that that improvement of productivity by crop cultivation optimization labor saving through Syngenta seed coating technology.

Syngenta's unique Seedcare institute is an important platform for the seed treatment strategy implementation. The Seedcare Institute made up of 17 fully functional facilities that ensure global service standards are met and implemented based on local market needs and customer requests. The service includes Recipe development, Application support, Quality Assessment & Engineering, Stewardship, Training, Seed safety and Product marketing support. China site is based in Beijing.

In general, Syngenta maintains leadership in seed treatment industry through innovative products, professional technology, and close to the customer service.

What new products Syngenta plans to launch recently? How about the future pipeline?

We launched Vibrance^® Maxx Cereal and industry use polymer in China this year. The new product on cereal helps us to expand the channel coverage, the polymer perfects our solution for seed companies. For Fall Armyworm control in CN, Fortenza^® Duo and Fortenza^®, which has been registered in other countries and regions like Brazil and Africa, is expected to be registered in China in 2021. The global level, Syngenta recently launched SALTRO^® (ADEPIDYN™) and is planning on TYMIRIUM^®, mainly aims at soil pathogen and nematode control. The registration grant in CN is expected around 2023. Bio-stimulants for seed treatment will also be available in the next few years.

What are the key seed treatment markets that Syngenta is focusing on? Syngenta achieved RMB 400 million sales of seed treatment in China. Taking China as an example, what product development and marketing plans will Syngenta launch in China’s market?

Syngenta has traditionally focused on high-value seed markets such as North and South America and Europe, but in recent years it has increasingly invested in emerging markets such as China. Currently, Syngenta is the industry leader in China with sales value over 400 million RMB. Seed companies and farmers are both our service target, and more than 20 products has been registered and upcoming 1-2 new products every year, which will ensure us to provide completed seed treatment solution to meet various customer needs in different areas on different crops. In China, since seed treatment is relatively new compared with other plant protection technologies, demand creation like  seeing is believing is our focus to bring more awareness to farmer on the benefits of seed treatment, especially on wheat and rice. At the same time, key diseases and pests with big damage to the crop production or urgent control need, such as fall armyworm, wheat stalk rot, and rice bakanae has been in our research and development radar. As mentioned earlier, field test and registration is undergoing, and new products introduction will be accelerated to solve farmers' pain points.

In your opinion, what is the innovation trend of seed treatment industry in the future?

My observation about innovation trend will be as below:

Firstly, is all about the seed, predicting the main and future challenges for seeds and planning in advance will address the challenges. Rice bakanae, wheat stalk rot, maize herbicide phytotoxicity and increasing sucking pest pressure after GM deregulation are the major problems for the crops while opportunities for the seed treatment industry, which requires the product or solution research direction targeted on Fusarium and sucking pest.

Secondly, with the increasingly strict chemical regulatory management, environmentally friendly biocontrol agents or biostimulant will be quickly adopted and promoted in seed treatment, also, abiotic stress management like drought will be addressed as well as the biotic control.

Thirdly, in terms of seed treatment service mode, especially for the downstream channels, seed treatment product is not only the key factor for successful promotion, Moreover, how to better provide seed treatment service including seeds coating more safely and efficiently will become an important breakthrough under the increasingly product homogeneity.

This article was initially published in AgroPages '2020 Market Insight' magazine. Download it to read more articles.