Corteva: ‘Mother Nature’ changes the game quickly and demands new agricultural tools

“Mother Nature” is changing quickly and this requires the adoption of technology-driven solutions that will help both growers and consumers, Jim Collins, the chief operating officer of Corteva Agriscience, the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont, told EURACTIV.

The merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont (DowDuPont) was finalised at the end of August 2017. In addition to DowDuPont, there is also Bayer’s $66 billion buyout of Monsanto and ChemChina’s $43 billion acquisition of Syngenta, which is due to be followed by a planned SinoChem merger in 2018.

The agriculture division of the merged companies is named Corteva Agriscience.

“The word ‘core’ meaning heart or centre, and the word “teva” meaning nature or earth. So, it’s the core, heart of nature. The name itself has a meaning aiming to help improve the livelihoods of producers across the world,” Collins said.

A new focus on consumers

Collins said the main objective is to enrich the lives of those who produce, but a key challenge will also be to improve the lives of those who consume.

“We are working hard to get the consumer perspective in our view as a new company, working to understand those trends that are developing globally and making sure that we have the maximum flexibility around the use of our technology to work rapidly and help growers benefit from that technology,” he said.

Collins explained that the reason for the merger was to free up the duplicative resources that sometimes come from two separate companies, so that “we could make some funds and resources available to re-invest in growth so we could create more opportunities”.

“Research and development in agriculture is a requirement, not a choice, because Mother Nature is changing the game too quickly and we believe that the continued development of new tools will be necessary.”

“There is a need for new products for resistance management. As climate change has moved some cropping practices around, new pests are constantly emerging and we have to stay ahead of these changing trends,” he added.

In addition, the agricultural expert stressed that the regulators were always raising the bar, looking for better and safer alternatives.

“Due to these reasons, we decided to come together and invest in science to bring solutions. The EU market provides great opportunities for us.”

A tailor-made approach

The Corteva boss noted the company would deal with livelihoods of growers globally, from an African smallholder to a large producer in Hawaii or a commercial farmer in the EU.

“We design agricultural products for the markets that they serve,” he said, adding that there is room for science to improve not only the quantity of production but also its quality, bringing a safer and more sustainable set of outcomes.

“In Europe especially, there is room for new tools that can drive agriculture to be more sustainable such as better use of water or less use of inputs, more productivity on a smaller footprint, the continued management of biodiversity etc.”

He explained that the challenging debate on how technology can be a part of the future solutions and not part of the problem would always be there and pointed out that in the past, the benefits were not communicated properly.

“So, for the drought situations we have seen in southern Europe, there are products that are perfectly suited for these markets. Or some new crop protection products with environment-friendly profiles and control pests that we have lost the ability to control.”

“Society is constantly raising the bar, we understand and respond to that. But we have to use technology to solve these issues.”

The new plant breeding techniques

Collins also referred to the discussion in Europe about the so-called “new plant breeding techniques” (NPBTs), a term that describes a number of scientific methods for the genetic engineering of plants to enhance traits like drought tolerance and pest resistance.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide most probably after summer whether these techniques should be classed as GMOs and, therefore, fall under the strict GMO approval process.

Supporters of NPBTs argue that plants obtained through these techniques could also be the product of conventional cross-breeding techniques that mimic natural processes and hence cannot be considered genetically modified organisms (GMOs).