Syngenta Seedcare and Bioceres Crop Solutions collaborate to bring innovative biological seed treatments to market

Customers seeking cutting-edge biological seed treatment solutions will benefit from a global commercial and R&D collaboration announced on September 16 between Syngenta Crop Protection’s Seedcare business and Bioceres Crop Solutions (NASDAQ: BIOX), a leader in biological crop productivity solutions.

Bioceres is a key provider of biological inoculants, including rhizobia bacteria, which improve crop nutrition and support plant growth. This seed-applied solution helps crops, such as soybean, capture nitrogen from the atmosphere and significantly reduces the need for nitrogen fertilizers – supporting regenerative agriculture. Biological seed treatment products such as inoculants, biocontrols and biostimulants are based on microorganisms, their metabolites, plant extracts and other naturally occurring materials. The global biologicals seeds treatment market is projected to grow from $0.6bn in 2020 to $1.6bn by 2030.

The collaboration between Bioceres and Syngenta builds on a successful commercial partnership of more than 20 years in Argentina. Under the agreement*, Syngenta Seedcare will become the exclusive global commercialization distributor for Bioceres’ biological seed treatment solutions, except in Argentina where they will continue to collaborate under the existing framework. Under the long-term R&D collaboration, the companies will jointly undertake the development of new products while accelerating the registration of products already in the pipeline.

Jonathan Brown, Global Head of Syngenta Seedcare said, ″The agreement with Bioceres furthers our strategy to provide growers with more complementary choices to manage pest resistance and improve crop health. We draw strengths from our longstanding relationship with Bioceres and are fully committed to providing growers with more sustainable innovations to further improve seed health.″

″This announcement shows the value of our commercial offerings and R&D capabilities, and greatly expands and accelerates our ability to reach more growers through the global reach of Syngenta Seedcare,″ said Chief Executive Officer of Bioceres Federico Trucco. ″Biological products play an important role in offering growers new solutions to increase crop yields while reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint.  We believe this collaboration with Syngenta will allow us both to advance those goals more rapidly in a time of significant global need for new solutions.″

Syngenta Seedcare and Bioceres will expand their cooperation in key markets such as Brazil and China, as well as in other regions around the world. Implementation of the agreement will be subject to regulatory clearances.

*Bioceres will retain global rights to use its biologicals solutions on HB4^® crops, which have been modified to better withstand drought events. The portfolio of Marrone Bio Innovations, recently acquired by Bioceres and commercialized by ProFarm Group, one of Bioceres’ main subsidiaries is also outside the scope of the current agreement.