A new company specialised in breeding pulses - Lidea and Top Semence combine their variety development activities

Lidea and TOP Semence, the main actors in variety development research, seed production and marketing of pulses, are combining their variety development activities in a single company. The new company aims to develop new varieties of chickpea, lentil and dry bean.

By pooling Lidea and TOP Semence’s variety breeding and genetic resources, the company will be in a position to satisfy farmers’ needs and consumers’ demands more rapidly while meeting the objectives of the Protein Plan.

The objective of this merger is to increase the companies’ capacity to offer varieties of pulses (chickpea, lentil, dry bean) that will better meet:

– consumer expectations, their nutritional requirements and ethical and environmental concerns.

– producers’ agronomic expectations, in terms of yield, stress tolerance (particularly water stress), disease resistance, ease of harvest, etc.

– manufacturers’ expectations by taking into account markets and technological needs according to the various outlets.

The two companies are pooling their means and resources

Governance will be shared between the two companies with an alternating presidency. Didier Nury (Managing Director of TOP Semence) said: “Our companies have a long history of successful plant breeding and together we want to boost development of pulses”.

According to Patrice Jeanson (Head of Breeding and Head of Research Collaboration at Lidea): “This pooling of research resources will be a real asset, enabling us to offer practical and rapid solutions to industry actors”.

Varieties resulting from this research will be allocated preferentially to the two companies, which will both be responsible for their production and marketing. Each partner will also retain ownership of the varieties already registered or in the process of being registered.

Europe is currently the continent that consumes and produces the lowest amount of pulses. The alliance of these actors aims to secure a strong position on this market. The FAO estimates that global demand for proteins will increase by 40% by 2030 and the trend is towards an increase in the consumption of vegetable proteins, supported by an increasingly comprehensive offer. As alternatives to animal proteins, pulses have multiple nutritional, environmental and economic advantages. In France, their production is increasing sharply, as is the case for chickpeas, which have seen their surface area multiply by 3.8 over 3 years (36,706 ha in 2019).

About Lidea

Lidea is the result of the merger between Euralis Seeds and Caussade Semences Group. In proximity to our ecosystem, Lidea creates and provides customised and sustainable multi-crop seed solutions that generate added value for producers throughout the year. Lidea mobilises and federates its teams to meet, with efficiency and relevance, the needs expressed by farmers, distributors, manufacturers and consumers.

17 subsidiaries – 17 research sites – 8 factories – 2,000 employees in France and around the world- Sales in over 48 countries – 60 crops marketed – € 350m turnover.

About TOP Semence

An alliance of 11 agricultural cooperatives established over 70 years ago, TOP Semence specialises in the production of field crop seeds and is a breeder of garlic and chickpea. 30 years of breeding have led to the compilation of a leading catalogue in the chickpea market. TOP Semence’s varieties represent over half of national production, developed in partnership with downstream actors.

180 employees – 1,100 seed producers – € 55m turnover in 2020 – 1 40 ha experimental site– 4 factories – More than 20 crops produced and marketed.