“1+6+X” program – Fuhua Group to launch 6 new herbicides in 5 years

“Chinese pesticide enterprises should not continue their manners of simple manufacturing and imitation but should upgrade the production-based idea into service-oriented thinking to provide farmers with crop protection solution and technical support, other than looking at just product sales. Fuhua Group began its transformation since 2013 to commit itself to the terminal market and has positioned service as an important strategy for the future development of the company. In the years ahead, we want to make a breakthrough in the glyphosate-only business mode and continue our effort to broaden our herbicide product portfolio so that we will be able to provide our partners with more product selections and more comprehensive solutions.” This is what said at the 8th World Academic Meeting for the Development of Pesticide Technologies & Application, by the Board Chairman Zhang Hua of Sichuan Fuhua Agricultural Technology Group (‘Fuhua Group’), when speaking of Chinese pesticide industry development mode and the future strategic transformation of Fuhua Group.
 

Fuhua Group was founded as a sino-foreign joint venture in 1999. The company started its agrochemical business in 2006, being dedicated to production of glyphosate technical and formulations. Each year the company will give an input of Yuan 50 million to its glyphosate engineering research centre for spending on research program, procurement of technical equipment and introduction of research personnel. 2016 is the 10th-anniversary of the company’s presence in agrochemical business. In the year, the industry suffers a market downturn. However, in face of the difficulties, the company is actively exploring new approaches for future development.
 

Chairman Zhang pointed out that Chinese pesticide enterprises ought to strive for sustainable development based on following thinking: manufacturing to be refined and differentiated; research to be invested with increased amount; product range to be diversified as accompanied with comprehensive services; customer to be further explored and more comprehensively served; big data and internet + mode to be utilized to analyse market status in more depth to achieve the upgrading of the industry. 
 

Based on the above innovative business mode, Fuhua Group has formulated a new program, which is the “1+6+X” program worked out in conjunction with the planning of the 3rd 5-Year Plan of the company. The meaning is that on the basis of the existing glyphosate business, the company is going to extend and optimize its product structure with releases of 1 to 2 herbicide varieties each year. “X” encompasses 2 aspects: one refers to the centralized procurement platform to be established by Fuhua Group, on top of its own herbicide to consolidate more prime insecticide and fungicide products toward further formulation productions; the other is to realize the cyclic utilization of the by-products of herbicide to achieve an integrated industry cycling. To this end, Fuhua Group has made infrastructural and technical reserves in an effort to launch 6 new varieties in 5 years’ time, as being supported by company’s glyphosate strength. The new releases will provide customers with more product selections and solutions. It is expected that by mid 2016 the company’s annually 12,000-ton glufosinate project will be launched. In 2016 – 2017, the company’s dicamba will be released. In the interim period, the construction of the company’s 3,000-Mu Fuhua Production Base will be completed, which will further help to reduce the cost of production, speed up the overseas market exploration and make deployment in domestic formulations market. 
 

George Long, Marketing Director, said in an interview, “85%-90% of Fuhua’s glyphosate is sold to overseas market, mostly to South America and Africa. Fuhua enjoys a good reputation in the international market through our long-year cooperation with customers abroad, and we are now able to supply diversified and individualised products to customers. Significant changes are taking place presently in the international market, Fuhua’s transformation and planning activities reflect that we are adapting ourselves to the market change and customer demand. Adaptions are also required by our own development needs. As our Chairman Zhang says, Fuhua is exploring and putting into practice a brand-new development mode which has incorporated customer, researching and manufacturing altogether.