A Close Look at the New Group Portrait of the Agrochemical Industry in 2018 and Trend Analysis for the Industry

- M&As and alliances remain a staple of the industry
- Industry powerhouses speed up platform-building and ecology deployment
-“R&D + Products + Channels”—What Japanese players survive and thrive on
-Transforming challenges into opportunities—Indian players promise to grow in prominence
- Digital agriculture enters a new era with increased “depth” and “width”

Editor's Note: The M&A binge, seen in the global agrochemical industry over the past five years, is about to end. Industry powerhouses will benefit from the synergistic effect increasingly unleashed in the wake of M&As, and the resulting “Matthew Effect” will loom large. Predictably, over the next few years, M&As among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as their alliances with larger companies stand to become a staple of the industry. On the other hand, powerhouses will become more dedicated to building platforms and agricultural ecosystems, and they may even go as far as breaking boundaries and empowering new ecology. During this process, Japanese agrochemical enterprises, committed to innovation and craftsmanship, promise to continue their leadership in the development of new agrochemical products. Indian agrochemical companies promise to grow in prominence because they excel in capturing industry trends and can ensure quick responses, thus transforming challenges into opportunities. Digital agriculture, which has been applied throughout the development of the industry, promises to enter a new era with increased “depth” and “width”.

M&As and alliances remain a staple of the industry

Since 2014, global agrochemical powerhouses have been going on an M&A spree, fueled by climate change, declining crop prices, exchange rate fluctuations, a weakening global agricultural economy, among other factors. First, Dow and DuPont merged into DowDuPont, which has named its Agriculture Division as Corteva Agriscience™. ChemChina completed its takeover of Syngenta. Bayer acquired Monsanto. BASF, after completing its takeover of the business and assets of Bayer, muscled into such specialized fields as seed and non-selective herbicides, in addition to renaming its Crop Protection Division into the Agricultural Solutions Division. Moreover, the merger between ChemChina and Sinochem Group, as well as the takeover of Arysta LifeScience by India-based UPL, will come to an end. To date, the five-year M&A binge in the agricultural input industry is about to end.

As far as the industry is concerned, along with the completion of business delivery among the M&As parties, as well as the optimization and restructuring of relevant businesses, the “Matthew Effect” will loom large, which, in turn, has nudged SMEs to accelerate M&As, build cooperation alliances, and restructure businesses. In contrast to the M&A spree of multinational giants, the M&A targets of SMEs are more concentrated to products, technologies, brands, markets, and channels, with a view to achieving some synergistic effect. In 2018, global agrochemical companies—including India’s Crystal Crop Protection, Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation, as well as AMVAC and Gowan from the United States—pursued varying levels of M&As in a bid to diversify their product portfolio and speed up transformation & upgrading.

Along with M&As among companies, come increasingly frequent strategic alliances between small SMEs and larger companies. Most notably, those SMEs with unique advantages are more favored by larger companies. For instance, at a certain link along the industrial chain, one such SME may enjoy a unique competitive edge that positions itself best in the chain; in addition, it is able to capitalize on industry trends and embrace innovative, forward-thinking development ideas. Another such SME may have certain advantages in a few links along the industrial chain so that it can constantly enhance its value chain by integrating some of its superior resources. In building an efficient strategic alliance, Evogene, Israel’s leading biotech firm, delivered an eye-catching performance by forging strategic partnerships with industry leaders including Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto, Corteva, BASF, Embrapa, ICL, MBI, IMAmt, and TMG in the development and commercialization of new products, by virtue of its unique computational predictive biology platform. Coincidentally, Farmers Edge, the global leader in agriculture decision-making, reached a strategic cooperation with dozens of companies including Nufarm, Limagrain, Raven industries, Lindsay Corp, and CNH in 2018 alone, because of its unique advantages in digital agriculture.

Foreseeably, over the coming years, the M&As among SMEs and their alliances with larger companies will be the fastest means for them to complete transformation and upgrading. Meanwhile, such M&As and alliances will become the norm for the industry, thereby increasing the concentration ratio of the industry.


Industry powerhouses speeding up platform-building and ecology deployment

Evidently, building a value chain or selecting a position in the value chain cannot meet the demands of multinational giants for performance growth. As things stand, these giants are more focused on building platforms and ecosystems. In building ecosystems, giants seek not merely to integrate resources but also to efficiently combine various resources for sound ecological operation. At present, multinational giants are building their ecosystems in four ways: self-building, acquisition, equity participation, and strategic cooperation. In recent years, in addition to large-scale M&As, multinational giants have never ceased to make efforts to deploy ecology for the industry. Most prominently, these giants are trying to maintain their core strengths and relevance in the industry by developing new products, offering comprehensive solutions, beavering away at biotech, and deploying digital agriculture in a forward-thinking manner.

Bayer and Monsanto are the example par excellence in building platforms and ecosystems. The merger of the two giants promises to yield an open, all-embracing ecology platform that will pool more superior resources and empower new agricultural ecology using multi-dimensional, cross-sectoral approaches.

In developing new molecules, a range of factors—including development cost, development cycle, and market risk—have led to companies altering their development strategy, shifting from previous independent R&D, increasingly toward joint development with external forces, in an effort to reduce risk cost. For instance, in the initial stage of developing new molecules, Bayer forged a strategic partnership with Genedata, a Swiss software solution company, to digitalize its product R&D process, thus significantly shortening the development cycle and gaining an early advantage in time-to-market. During the mid-to-late stages, Bayer strategically partnered with a more powerful Japanese agrochemical enterprise, taking the lead to obtain the global development right and marketing right of Quinofumelin, a new fungicide of Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals Agro, Inc. (MCAG). In upgrading old products and developing new ones, Bayer joined forces with LB-Track, a Chile-based company, to co-develop methods to quickly detect herbicide-resistant weeds, thus making a head start in product upgrading.

Monsanto’s Roundup Ready PLUS® crop solution platform, which is the most representative comprehensive solution platform, has integrated products from many companies such as FMC, Sumitomo Chemical, ADAMA, Valent, and Precision Laboratories. After takeover, Bayer, after the acquisition of Monsanto, announced that it would introduce more products onto the platform, which, after optimization and upgrading, will come out in the planting season of 2019 as a more efficient, easier-to-use Roundup Ready PLUS crop management platform.

If the model of bilateral cooperation has laid a solid groundwork for building ecosystems, the model of multilateral cooperation literally has the potential to take the building of ecosystems to a new level. In April 2018, Bayer, together with International Finance Corporation (a member of World Bank Group), Netafim, and Switzerland-based Re Corporate Solutions, forged a cooperation alliance and launched a global cooperative project, Better Life Farming, aimed at providing comprehensive, innovative solutions for small farm holders (with less than two hectares of farmland) in developing countries, allowing these farmers to operate their farms in a sustainable manner. Through multi-lateral cooperation, the alliance will consider local planting needs and provide small farm holders with a comprehensive set of measures integrating sowing, precision irrigation, plant protection, finance, and insurance, in a bid to build a sustainable agricultural development model and profit model. In fact, Bayer CropScience started exploring building an innovative, sound “ecosystem” through multi-lateral cooperation several years ago. In 2015, to facilitate the development of Brazil's soybean industry, Bayer CropScience launched the RTRS program, in collaboration with Santander, Unilever, and Yara. Under the framework of the program, soybean producers, sellers, and processors cooperate with banks and social organizations to ensure sustainable soybean planting globally, as well as the social responsibility of the soybeans industry. The program aims to standardize the use of global agrochemicals and boost responsible soybean production, processing, and trading across the world.

In the digital agriculture sector, Climate FieldView—the digital agriculture platform of The Climate Corporation under the umbrella of Bayer—has forged strategic partnerships with AgWorks, DroneDeploy, MyAgData, Sentera, and Skymatics. These new partners are exposed to data analysis, insurance declaration, aerial imaging, drone software platform, among others. More recently, The Climate Corporation has reached a strategic cooperation with three Canada-based agrotechnique firms (SoilOptix, A&L Canada Laboratories, and AgCon Aerial) to provide farmers with powerful digital agriculture solutions. The Climate Corporation claims, “Given constantly emerging innovative techniques in global digital agriculture, we will remain committed to looking for more partners to provide farmers with more insights, with which they can increase their yields and others.” In 2018, as part of its efforts to improve its agricultural ecosystem, Monsanto also conducted a range of cooperative projects with “niche” companies in various fields in terms of gene-editing techniques, pest control schemes, lean preparation technology, and spray cleaning systems.

It follows that the aforesaid cooperation has not simply helped companies expand their ecological boundaries and open up new business growth points, but has propelled SMEs onto the track of fast growth, thus enhancing the entire agricultural ecosystem.

“R&D + Products + Channels”—What Japanese players survive and thrive on

Unlike the industry giants’ M&A spree, Japanese agrochemical players appear exceptionally low-key, impervious to the hustle and bustle of the outside world. Committed to their R&D strength, Japanese companies are trying to deliver superior new offerings through craftsmanship, while constantly expanding their channels to become more competitive in the industry.

Sumitomo Chemical, the only multinational giant uninvolved in this wave of M&As, remains a pioneer marching forward, thanks to its increased investment in R&D that has enhanced its R&D strength. In 2018, Sumitomo Chemical completed its Chemistry Research Center and Pollution-free Product Research Center located in Japan and the United States, respectively. Prior to this, the company had completed a new field test center in the United States and an R&D center in Latin America.

The new R&D centers set up around the globe can help Sumitomo Chemical improve its R&D strength, thereby laying a solid foundation for delivering innovative products. Today, the potential commercial value of new agrochemical products in the development pipeline of Sumitomo Chemical is up to 150-200 billion yen (approximately US$1.32–1.76 billion at the current exchange rate), according to reports.

Superior products, coupled with solid, robust sales channels, are essential to deliver an exceptional performance. When it comes to building and expanding sales channels, Sumitomo Chemical, in addition to its own sales channels, tends to integrate its products into the sales channels of other multinational companies—a strategy that allows it to funnel more resources into R&D. In 2018, Sumitomo Chemical licenced the marketing rights of its new fungicide Pavecto? (metyltetraprole) to BASF and Nufarm in a bid to accelerate the time-to-market of the product.

In expanding channels, another prominent player is Sumitomo Corp., which has grown from a mere Japanese agrochemical exporter into an importer & exporter exposed to 33 countries beyond Japan. Recent years have seen Sumitomo Corp. engaging in an M&A binge in the agrochemical input and service segments. In 2011, Sumitomo Corp. acquired Alcedo S.R.L., a Romanian agrochemical company. In 2015, it bought majority interest in Brazilian dealer Agro Amazonia. In 2018, the company further turned itself into a serial acquirer by taking over 51% of the stake of Spectr, a Ukraine-based agrochemical enterprise, 65% of the stake of Brazilian dealer Agro Amaz?ni, and 40% of the stake of Mahindra Summit Agriscience Limited (MSAS), an Indian agrochemical company. These acquisitions were aimed at beefing up its global sales network, enhancing its ability to develop new products and services, and expanding its global marketing business in plant protection. In addition, Sumitomo Corp. acquired Taranis, a precision agriculture company in Israel, in an effort to build up its current business and speed up the business growth of Taranis.

Transforming challenges into opportunities—Indian players promising to grow in prominence

As can be seen in the 2017–18 FY, in the top 20 Indian Agrochemical Enterprises released by AgroPages in 2018, all companies except Rallis India posted some growth in their rupee-denominated sales. In the recent two years, however, increasingly tough environmental policies pursued by the Chinese government impacted the raw material purchase side of India’s agrochemical companies, leaving them to change their development strategy. According to statistics, over a half of these top 20 companies have adopted a strategy of backward integration, constantly investing more in the raw material side on the upstream. This strategy enables them to achieve business transformation & upgrading and to shift from end product suppliers to technical material suppliers, thereby delivering steady, sustainable profitability. The resourcefulness to rapidly turn challenges into opportunities, as demonstrated by Indian players, sets a good example for the industry to follow. Additionally, the Indian players’ fast rise to prominence can also be evidenced by some companies launching aggressive acquisitions to improve and strengthen their value chains, thereby rapidly expanding their footprints.

Data shows that India-based UPL, which ranked 9th in the list (including 2012–2017 performance review) of the top 20 global agrochemical companies in 2017, represents one of the few players that has seen sustained performance growth over the past five years. Given such robust performance, UPL acquired Arysta LifeScience in a whopping $4.2 billion deal in July 2018. The combined strengths of the two companies across regions, crops, and products will yield synergy, solidifying its position as a leading producer while cementing its R&D strength. Furthermore, UPL will acquire 100% of the interest of Kaveri Seeds—India's largest listed company in hybrid seeds, as well as of IBC—a Costa Rican pesticide enterprise, in a bid to increase its market presence in relevant sectors and regions.

In addition, Crystal Crop Protection Pvt. Ltd (CCPPL), an Indian agrochemical company, has garnered the attention of the industry with its outstanding performance. "Our strategic acquisition binge in recent years—in addition to our key competitive strengths: deep sales and distribution penetration, ability to develop brands, strong R&D-based innovative product portfolio, strong registration capabilities, as well as our long-term relationships with suppliers of raw materials—are also critical for our rapid growth," said Ankur Aggarwal, general manager of CCPPL, in an exclusive interview with AgroPages recently. In 2018, Crystal acquired a specialty chemicals plant from Cytec India Specialty Chemicals & Materials, an Indian unit of Solvay SA, part of Syngenta’s seed business, and three insecticide and fungicide brands. Previously, the company bought Proclaim, Tilt, and Blue Copper brands from Syngenta, as well as key crop protection brands Furadan, Splendour, Metcil, and Affinity Force from FMC. Earlier in 2016, Crystal acquired Bavistin, BASF’s carbendazim fungicide brand, and in 2011 it branched out into the seed market by acquiring Hyderabad-based Rohini Seeds, Rohini Bioseeds, and Agritech.

In April 2018, Crystal officially filed draft papers with Sebi, India's market regulator, intending to raise INR10 billion (roughly $154 million) through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for a greater presence. Currently, Crystal is assessing and planning to continue taking over businesses, technologies, or brands synergizing with its development, Aggarwal further revealed. The company is convinced that selective acquisitions, cooperation, or alliances can swiftly boost its brand competitiveness, therefore diversifying its product portfolio and fortifying its market position.

Digital agriculture enters a new era with increased “depth” and “width”

In recent years, as new information technology—particularly cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and artificial intelligence (AI)—fuses with modern agriculture at a rapid pace, digital agriculture is undergoing a metamorphosis and has entered a new era with increased “depth” and “width”, promising to spawn a new wave of scientific & technological revolutions and transformations in farming.

“Digital revolution is profoundly impacting agricultural development, making agriculture more sustainable. With digital tide looming, we will get actively involved in the effort to propel the next farming revolution,” said Jagresh Rana, Monsanto’s CEO (Asia & Africa), in an exclusive interview with AgroPages.
 
Currently, the application area of Monsanto's Climate FieldView digital agriculture platform has exceeded 720 million mu (over 120 million acres) in the United States, Canada, and Brazil, with 210 million mu (35 million acres) in the area of paid use and more than 0.1 million registered users. In 2018, this platform was extended to some areas in Europe, and plans are underway to make it available to more markets, including Australia, Argentina, and South Africa. In addition, FarmRise?, Monsanto's digital agriculture platform for small farm holders, has been implemented in India, having attracted some four million Indian farmer users. The company intends to extensively promote the platform in 2019, and there are also future plans to introduce it to Asia, Africa, and South America.

Moreover, Monsanto has forged partnerships with some start-ups in digital agriculture surrounding its Climate FieldView™ digital agriculture platform, in order to extend its business boundaries to data analysis and sharing, data platform connection, soil detection and analysis, insurance services, aerial remote-sensing imaging, drone technical platforms, among other sectors. By doing so, the company can deliver more sophisticated, systematic services to farmers.

A giant leap is anticipated to be made in digital agriculture, along with Bayer's successful takeover of Monsanto, and with successful practices and in-depth promotion of digital agriculture by big players in the agricultural sector. The immense market potential is also luring professional digital agriculture firms into this bonanza, and their involvement promises to channel the application of digital agriculture from “high-end” to “normal”, eventually leading to widespread application.

The year 2018 witnessed Farmers Edge™, a global leader in agriculture decision-making, roll out 19 new tools, before announcing 90 additional groundbreaking digital agriculture tools, in support of data-driven decision-making and the production of high-yielding crops. Furthermore, the company has plans to expand its data collection network to include 8,500+ meteorological stations and 25,000+ remote information processing devices, as well as to raise the application area of its paid-for products up to 33 million acres. The company is known to be able to handle 50,000+ fields and analyze in excess of 11 billion data records on a daily basis.

Piggybacking on its vast data support system and professional technology, Farmers Edge™ can offer objective perspectives, helping planters to make farm management decisions. Building on this strength, Farmers Edge™ reached strategic cooperation with dozens of firms in 2018 alone. On the one hand, the company joined forces with industry peers to develop new types of efficient precision agriculture tools, constantly upgrading its current business and extending business boundaries. On the other hand, it partnered with agricultural companies to promote digital agriculture tools globally, helping farmers increase yields.

Thriving digital agriculture is also attracting a significant number of agricultural start-ups, whose business scope includes farmland management (software platform), machine intelligence (hardware equipment), aerial imaging (drone and satellite), IoT sensing (pH value, temperature, and humidity detection), weather and climate (meteorological information forecasting), forecasting model (yield), precision planting/fertilization/irrigation/spraying, as well as the identification of diseases, insect pests, and weeds. Their explorations and practices in digital agriculture promise to boost the widespread application of the technology around the globe.

2018 Big Events of Agri-input Industry

Mergers&Acquisitions

-    Bayer closes Monsanto acquisition
-   China's ChemChina,Sinochem merge
-    UPL acquires Arysta LifeScience for over $4 billion
-    UPL contemplates buying potential stake in Telangana’s Kaveri Seeds 
-    BASF closes acquisition of businesses and assets from Bayer
-    Syngenta to acquire Strider
-    Crystal Crop Protection acquires 3 Syngenta insecticide, fungicide brands
-    Crystal Crop Protection acquires certain seed and fodder business from Syngenta India
-    Crystal Crop Protection to buy brands of FMC
-    CrystalCrop Protection to acquire Solvay’s manufacturing plant in Nagpur,India
-    Excel Crop Care, Sumitomo Chemical India to merge
-    Sumitomo Corporation acquires Brazilian ag supplies distributor Agro Amazônia
-    Sumitomo Corporation acquires Mahindra Summit Agriscience
-    Sumitomo Corporation acquired equity stake in Israeli agritech startup Taranis
-    Sumitomo Corporation  acquired 51% stakes of Spectr-Agro and Spectr-Agrotechnika
-    Sumitomo Corporation, IIJ ink agreement for advanced agriculture
-    HELM Agro US acquires EXTREME® herbicide from BASF
-    SABIC acquires 24.99% stake in Clariant
-    LANXESS acquires Solvay’s phosphorus additive business
-    Certis Europe BV and Spiess-Urania Chemicals GmbH to merge into one company
-    Agrium, PotashCorp completed merger
-    Nippon Soda completes acquisition of Zoetis' plant health business
-    Arysta LifeScience completes its acquisition of Etec Crop Solutions
-    OAT Agrio acquires Dutch Company Chrysal
-    Nihon Nohyaku to acquire Colombian agrochemical company Adnicol
-    Adama Brasil authorized to buy distributor Foco Agronegocios
-    Mexichem acquires 80% stake in Israeli irrigation firm Netafim for $1.8 billion
-    Croda acquires crop enhancement company Plant Impact
-    Nufarm completes acquisition of FMC herbicides in Europe
-    Gowan to acquire Brazil's Cross Link
-    Syngenta completes acquisition of Nidera Seeds from COFCO International
-    Limin Chemical to acquire Hebei Veyong’s at spending of Yuan 750-800 million
-    AMVAC Chemical acquires Bromacilherbicide business assets from Bayer Crop Science
-    AMVAC acquires Tyratech

Collaboration&Licence

-    Bayer and Mitsui Chemicals Agro sign licence agreement for novel fungicide quinofumelin
-    Bayer partners with Genedata to digitalize Crop Science Research and Development
-    Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks unveil joint venture Joyn Bio
-    Bayer, International Finance Corporation, Netafim and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions form Better Life Farming alliance
-    Bayer, LB-Track partner on the development of faster herbicide-resistant weeds detecting method
-    Monsanto and Pairwise Plants announce R&D collaboration to accelerate innovation inagriculture with gene editing
-    Monsanto and AgriMetis enter global licensing agreement to drive novel insect control solutions
-    Monsanto collaborates with Adjuvants Unlimited to develop sprayer system cleaner
-    Monsanto and Exosect reach licensing agreement for Entostat? technology
-    Monsanto partners with Understory to bring weather tech to Argentina
-    Monsanto, Corteva sign licensing agreement on corn insect control tech
-    The Climate Corporation, Case IH partner to deliver two-way data sharing
-    The Climate Corp's FieldView adds five new partners
-    The Climate Corporation announces partnership to deliver farmers digital agsolutions
-    The Climate Corp, Farmers Mutual Hail partner to simplify crop insurance reporting
-   The Climate Corporation, A&L laboratories announce soil data partnership
-    The Climate Corporation and AgReliant Genetics collaborate to provide data integration capabilities between digital agriculture platforms
-    BASF and Biotrigo partner to develop new technology in wheat
-    BASF and International Rice Research Institute develop herbicide-tolerant rice
-    BASF and Evogene announce multiyear collaboration for the development of novel insecticides
-    BASF, HitGen enter DNA-encoded library based research collaboration
-    BASF, STK collaborate to expand distribution of Timorex Gold in Brazil
-    Evogene and TMG announce collaboration to develop nematode resistant soybean through genome editing
-    Evogene and IMAmt enter a collaboration in the field of insect resistance traits in cotton
-    Evogene and BASF announce multiyear collaboration for the development of novel insecticides
-    Evogene and MBI announce phase advancement in their insect control collaboration
-    Syngenta, NRGene announce R&D licensing agreement
-    ADAMA, Pessl Instruments announce global partnership
-    Sumitomo Chemical and BASF take major step in global development of novel fungicide metyltetraprole
-    Sumitomo Chemical, Nufarm sign agreement on new fungicide solutions
-    Nippon Soda and Syngenta enter into global licensing agreement for novel seed treatment technology
-    Arysta and Meiji enter into new insecticide flupyrimin licensing agreement in India
-    Arysta, Isagro reached agreement on fluindapyr distribution in Brazil
-    Sumitomo Corporation, IIJ ink agreement for advanced agriculture
-    Valent and Nufarm expand distribution partnership to include Industrial Vegetation Management portfolio
-    FMC Corporation and Chr. Hansen extend collaboration on natural crop protection
-    WinField United Canada and XiteBio Technologies announce distribution relationship
-   Alibaba Cloud and Longping High-Tech join hands in AI farming
-    Eden Research, Sipcam sign distribution agreement for grape fungicide
-    Dow and Alibaba sign cooperative deal about purchase platform
-    China's Longping High-Tech, ChemChina unit set up corn seed JV
-    Certis Europe, Kumiai Chemical signed joint development agreement on herbicide
-    Fine Agrochemicals appoints Adama Deutschlandas exclusive distributor
-    Sinochem’s wholly-owned subsidiary to become Win-All High-Tech Seed’slargestshareholder
-    MBI reaches distribution partnership with Hop Tri Investment Corporation in Vietnam
-    MBI announces international distribution partnership with Agricultural Materials Company (AMC-TR) in Turkey
-    MBI signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Great Harvest Agri Chemicals Corporation (GHAC) in the Philippines
-    Beijing Grand AgroChem granted an exclusive agency of mancozeb 80% WP by AGRIA S.A.
-    Indigo and India’s Mahyco bring microbial technology to South Asian farmers
-   Grupo AgroEnergía seals agreement with leading Russian company Agroliga
-   TechAccel, AgroSpheres enter research collaboration
-    Fine Agrochemicals signed new exclusive distributor agreement with Belchim SerbiaFine
-    Nichino America signs fungicide supply agreement with PBI-Gordon Corporation
-    Ingevity announces agrochemical business partnership with DRT
-    Sasol and HELM AG reach long-term marketing agreement
-   Microsoft, SlantRange partnership brings IoT, drones and advanced connectivity to farming
-    Innovak Global signs a strategic alliance with Seipasa for crop protection in México 
-    AgReliant Genetics and The Climate Corporation collaborate to provide data integration capabilities between digital agriculture platforms

Investment & Expansion

-   Monsanto invests in AI startup Atomwise's $45 million Series
-    ADAMA's global R&D center launches operations in Nanjing, China
-    Bayer inaugurates new greenhouse for insecticide research
-   Syngenta Ventures invests in $2.9m seed round for Danish pheromone-based pestcontrol startup BioPhero
-    Syngenta opens sixth world's Digital Innovation Lab in Ukraine
-    Syngenta, DJI plant seeds for agricultural drone partnership
-    BASF opens global state-of-the-art breeding center for cucumbers in Nunhem
-   Largest Argentine agrochemical company Red Surcos to double productive capacity
-    Certis USA completes new azadirachtin facility to meet demand for neem-based biopesticides
-    Subsidiary of Suli launches operations in Shanghai at cost of Yuan10 million
-    Nihon Nohyaku increased stake in Hyderabad Chemical from 74% to 99.94%
-    DowDuPont opens California innovation center
-    Adama inaugurates two factories with investment of over R$20 million in Brazil
-    Brandt opens new formulations lab in Illinois, US
-    Brandt opens new production facility in California
-    Evogene announces establishment of ag-chemicals subsidiary AgPlenus
-    Nufarm announces new manufacturing facility in Mississippi
-    Sumitomo Corporation established subsidiary in India for agrochemical trade
-   Limin Chemical to spend $50,000 to set up subsidiary in Myanmar
-   ICL invests in CropX, makes first investment in Precision Ag

Rebranding

-    AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals rebrands as Nouryon
-    Stockton rebrands as STK
-    SAPEC AGRO rebrands as ASCENZA