Agrochemical Enterprises Making More R&D Investments in 2013

 

 

An overview of the investment and expansion activities of agrochemical enterprises in 2013 shows that agrochemical enterprises especially the agrochemical giants have been more interested in investment on agro biotechnology-related sectors than conventional crop protection products. 

 

The reasons for the change are the following: firstly with the patent right of best-seller pesticides expiring one after another, the market share of the agrochemical giants is diluted, where their conventional pesticide market share is getting lost and the once-cornerstone pesticides are becoming unprofitable with little value; secondly the internal restructuring of agrochemical giants over recent years reveals that their crop disease-targeted marketing strategy in the past has been out of date. Taking an example of Syngenta, its crop protection and seed portion of business was consolidated in 2011, when the past product line-oriented business mode was changed to crop–based business unit, having formed 8 crop business units including wheat, sugarcane and soy, which aim to provide crop growers with a total solution covering seed, harvesting and even the product chains. Another example is the old-line Monsanto, who is the inventor of glyphosate and today still remains to be largest glyphosate supplier. However Monsanto started a strategy to concentrate on biotechnical development since the 80’s last century. Therefore it shows that the agrochemical giants have switched to a new strategy of development, which extends their business from the supply of existing pesticide toward coverage of the whole upstream to downstream plantation industry chains; thirdly as stated in the above, agrochemical enterprises have gradually realized the lost profit of conventional pesticide by the intense competition, knowing that controlling the seed which is the beginning of plantation will bring more benefit. As backed up by a strong R&D capacity plus a certain amount of investment, lots of companies have stepped into biotechnical sector. 

 

Crop Protection Business Transferring to Emerging Markets 

 

Another feature of investment and expansion of agrochemical enterprises in 2013 is that lots of companies have targeted at emerging markets. Although the old pesticide of agrochemical giants are suffering a downturn, their new products are not released to market fast enough and lots of companies are making investment in agriculture biotechnology, yet pesticide is an indispensable necessity of the industry, and will continue to be the main business of agrochemical enterprises, to which emerging market provides great potential market. Additionally over recent years GM crops are more widely planted worldwide, so more and more developing countries have started to accept plantation of GM crops, resulting in a significantly increased demand for pesticide, which has come to the close attention of global agrochemical enterprises. Syngenta has extended its pesticide capacity in Jiangsu; BASF has built new production facilities in China; FMC has expanded its production workshop and capacity in Brazil. All these activities indicate that the pesticide capacity of agrochemical enterprises is being transferred to emerging countries of great potentials. 

 

Expansions in the Research Triangle Park 

 

Located in North Carolina, the Research Triangle Park is the world largest research park, being one of the most famous high-tech and R&D centers so far with the presence of over 170 multinationals. The world agro industry leaders like Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, DuPont, Monsanto and Nufarm all landed in the Park. As innovation-driven multinationals, these industry leaders made great investment in research activities in 2013 and several of them have spontaneously decided to extend their research facilities in the Park. Also generic company, like Cheminova, has decided to extend its research capacity in the Park. The words said by Rico Toft Christensen, the board chairman of Cheminova North America, have best explained the reasons for these expansions, “The Research Triangle Park is an attractive destination to agri-biotechnical enterprises, whe re Cheminova has decided to land; but without the expansion led by industry giants like BASF and Syngenta it might not be possible for Cheminova to land here; the presence of these companies not only creates job opportunities but also forms an agri-biotechnical cluster, which attracts the presence of other companies.

Big 6 Multinationals

Syngenta
• completion of a significant production capacity expansion in Switzerland for s-metolachlor
• invests $94 million in expansion of its RTP campus again in USA
• invested $77 million in the expansion of its corn seed production facility in Formosa, Brazil
• invests Yuan 220 milliom on Yangtze No.2 project in Nantong , which will add an annual capacity of 15,000 tons of pesticides
• to open R& D center concentrating on sunflower parasitic weed broomrape

Bayer CropScience
• Bayer, Helena Chemica invest $19 million to expand facilities at Memphis’ Agricenter International
• opened a new state-of-the-art office in Dubai
• opened a new Wheat Breeding Station near Paris, France
• opened new Development North America facilities and laboratories in Research Triangle Park
• opens multi-crop breeding station in Hyderabad, India
• purchased nearly 70 acres of land located directly north of its current Research Triangle Park
• started construction work on its new $17 million R&D facility in Tennessee, US
• to construct a world-scale glufosinate-ammonium herbicide production plant in the USA
• to expand its formulation plant located in Kwinana, Western Australia
• to open SeedGrowth Centres dedicated to rice in Vietnam and Japan

Dow AgroSciences
• opened new facility at global headquarters in Indiana, US

BASF
• expanded RTP research facilities
• invests €50 million to expand its crop protection production capacities in the Guaratinguetá chemical complex, Brazil
• new formulation and packaging plant breaks ground in Rudong, Jiangsu Province, China and is expected to be fully operational in 2014
• opened a new facility in the Ghent region, Belgium
• opened a new plant for biological products in Chile
• to invest €10 billion in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region between now and 2020
• to set up a new Agricultural Research Station in Lonikand near Pune, India

Monsanto
• announced $400 million expansion plan at Chesterfield Village Research Center
• announced the completion of a $31 million expansion at its vegetable seed research headquarters in Woodland， Calif. making it the largest of its kind in the world for vegetable seed health testing
• completes €27mn investment in seed plant in Romania
• expanded corn breeding facility in Western Canada
• invested in new cotton research facility in Queensland
• investing over Rs 2,000 crore on research and development over the next 10 years in India
• opened a new research facility in Petrolina, Brazil
• to create a new Wheat Technology Center in the Twin Falls area, Idaho
• to invest about $25 million in two Tazewell County locations, Illinois, building a production plant and a warehouse for its Precision Planting operations
• to invest an additional €50 million in the south of France, to extend its production of canola, maize and sunflower
• to spend $100 million over the next 10 years on breeding corn for Western Canada

DuPont
• DuPont Pioneer and Pannar are partnering to establish advancing agricultural research and technological innovation in Africa
• DuPont Pioneer completed a facility expansion, including the addition of a new greenhouse at its Carman， Manitoba research centre
• DuPont Pioneer invested $19 million building two new processing towers at its Chatham, Ontario
• DuPont Pioneer opened a $3.5 million plant genetics research center in Stoneville, Mississippi
• DuPont Pioneer opened its new $2.5 million corn research center in Minnesota, US
• DuPont Pioneer plans to increase production capacity at its Hermiston, Ore.
• DuPont Pioneer to expand two of its Indiana seed production facilities
• DuPont Pioneer will triple its localized testing at a new soybean research facility in Stromsburg, Neb.
• opened DuPont Innovation Center in Turkey, a key growth market for the company
• opened its seed production facility in Stasi, Ukraine

Leading generic companies
• Arysta invested R$ 6.5 million in expansion of plant Salto de Pirapora, Brazil
• Cheminova confirmed expansion plan in RTP
• Nuseed opened a multi million dollar innovation centre in Horsham, Australia
• Rotam CropSciences opened a new office in Indonesia as the headquarters of the new Asia Pacific region
• Makhteshim Agan laid the cornerstone of the company’s new global R&D center at the Neot Hovav eco-industrial park in Israel
• Makhteshim Agan plans to double the capacity of its Indian manufacturing facility at Dahej
• Makhteshim Agan established a wholly owned sales subsidiary UAB MABENO in Lithuania

Seed Companies
• Agria Corporation establishes R&D facility in Shenzhen, China to develop advanced planting and seed cultivation technology for new strains of forage seeds, corn seeds and vegetable seeds
• INCOTEC opened new seed facility in India
• INCOTEC opened the new location in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• INCOTEC South Africa officially opened new facility
• S& W Seed acquired an additional 114 acres of producing farmland in Calipatria, California
• The Dutch Plant Breeding Company Rijk Zwaan launched a new demonstration facility in Canada that allows customers to sample products destined for the North American market

 Other Companies
• AgBiTech Pty opened a second manufacturing plant in Toowoomba, Australia to meet international demand for its baculovirus-based insect control products
• Andermatt Biocontrol founded Dutch subsidiary Andermatt Holland BV
• Clariant inaugurated a new production unit for its Industrial & Consumer Specialties Business Unit at the city of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico
• Clariant opened its new EUR 100 million Clariant Innovation Center in Frankfurt, Germany
• Clariant renamed its “Crop Protection” segment as “Crop Solutions”, aiming to become the leading supplier for crop agrochemicals by 2018
• FMC invests $ 20 million in Brazilian plant expansion, tripling the pesticides production capacity to meet the increasing demand
• IQV opened two new subsidiaries in China and US
• Koppert set up an operating base in Karnataka, India
• Sumitomo Chemical opened a branch office to expand herbicide sales in Argentina
• Sumitomo Corporation established an agricultural chemical sales company in Turkey

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