Pioneer’s seed sales rose 14 percent

DuPont, owner of Pioneer Hi-Bred of Johnston, said its Pioneer Hi-Bred subsidiary increased its seed sales by 14 percent in 2010 to $5.3 billion for 2010.

Chairman Ellen Kullman said Pioneer’s seed sales season “is off to a great start.” She credited Pioneer’s ProAccess marketint joint ventures with independent seed companies, as well as its “right product, right acre” program that puts more sales and marketing people in the fields with farmers as a factor in Pioneer’s market share gains against rival Monsanto in 2010.

Kullman also said that DuPont made the decision to not cut back on research and development costs in 2010 after an economy-generated earnings slump the previous year. Since 2007 Pioneer has announced the hiring of up to 500 more workers in its seed research facilities in Johnston, and last week also revealed a major expansion in the company’s greenhouse campus along Northwest Sixty-second Street in Johnston.

Pioneer employs about 2,400 workers  in Johnston and another 600 workers in a system of seed production plants around Iowa.
DuPont said that it took a charge of $179 million against fourth quarter and full year earnings to pay debt early.

For the full year 2010 DuPont earned $3 billion on sales of $31.5 billion, or $3.32 per share. That compared to a net income of $1.7 billion on sales of $26.1 billion, or $1.93 per share, in 2009.

Of DuPont’s $31.5 billion in 2010 sales, $9.1 billion came from agriculture and nutrition.

DuPont raised its expected per share earnings forecast for 2011 from $3.60 per share to $3.75 per share partly on improved prospects for the agriculture segment. DuPont earlier this month announced a $5.8 purchase of Danish enzymes maker Danisco, which has a plant at Cedar Rapids. DuPont and Danisco are collaborating on plants for a cellulosic ethanol plant in central Iowa.

The company said it took a $50 million charge in Research and development expense for an upfront payment related to a Pioneer licensing arrangement with Syngenta’s Agrisure for corn seed trait technology. Swiss-based Syngenta owns the Garst, Golden Harvest and NK seed lines.