DuPont Makes Major Moves in South Africa
31 July 2013 DuPont has acquired majority ownership of Pannar Seed (Pty) Limited, a South Africa-based seed company with operations throughout Africa and other parts of the world.
DuPont Pioneer and Pannar are partnering to increase the pace and scope of research and innovation in the African seed industry. Pioneer will retain the Pannar brand and will grow both the Pioneer and the Pannar brands and businesses.
DuPont Pioneer President Paul E. Schickler said, “The partnership between Pioneer and Pannar is beneficial on many levels. It represents growth opportunities for both businesses, for employees, and for the productivity of small-scale and commercial farmers who form the backbone of Africa’s economy and who will feed the continent’s rapidly growing middle class and increasing population.”
The majority-share acquisition will allow each business to access additional crop areas, reach more customers and deliver improved seed products to farmers. Pannar receives access to the Pioneer genetics library and its maize breeding and biotechnology capabilities. Pioneer will tap into Pannar’s expertise and reach across Africa, and its maize genetics developed specifically for the region.
“This is good news for Pannar customers, for our employees and for Africa,” said Brian Corbishley, Pannar chairman. “This partnership will ensure long-term growth as we deliver improved products to farmers in South Africa and across the continent.”
Technology Hub to be Established
“One of the key outcomes of the partnership will be the establishment of a world-class technology hub for Africa through which South Africa will become a center of innovation in seed breeding,” said Schickler.
Pioneer committed to investing $6 million by 2017 to establish a technology hub in South Africa to serve the region, similar to the research hubs that it established in Brazil, India and China. The hub will comprise a network of research facilities and testing locations in South Africa and around the continent in which Delmas, South Africa, will serve as a technology center of the network. The network will use leading R&D technologies which shorten breeding cycles and improve accuracy toward breeding targets, such as doubled haploids, ear photometry and the proprietary Pioneer Accelerated Yield Technology or AYT System, as well as genetic breeding technologies like marker-assisted selection.
“A critical benefit of this partnership will be the newly energized product pipelines for Pioneer and Pannar that will flow from combining the companies’ complementary germplasm pools and leveraging the expanded research infrastructure and network under a unified research strategy,” said Schickler.
The technology hub will incorporate key Pioneer and Pannar research and testing locations, combined germplasm – or plant genetic resource collections – talent and experience to improve cultivar breeding and development for Africa. Data sharing and analysis will be elevated to a new level as the Africa technology hub is connected to the Pioneer global R&D network. Research efforts will support all crops for which Pioneer and Pannar currently maintain breeding programs, including maize, sunflower, grain sorghum, forage sorghum, wheat, dry beans and soybeans.
Pioneer currently works with six academic institutions each year – four in the United States and two internationally – to host a plant breeding symposium to foster research skills development. Starting in 2014, Pioneer plans to add an additional educational breeding symposium to be hosted by a South Africa institution. Pioneer also is developing additional scholarship and fellowship opportunities for African plant breeders.
Pannar conducts collaborative research with academic institutions in South Africa and works closely with various public and private institutions in other countries in Africa. It provides in-house skills development training, in addition to its scholarship programs principally aimed at attracting students to the multidisciplinary field of agricultural science.
With 86 million acres (35 million hectares) available for maize production, Africa represents a significant opportunity for improved productivity. Average grain yields are less than 2 tons per hectare, about one-third of what is achieved in other developing regions and only one-fifth of yields in developed countries. In addition, maize seed demand is strong and growing. In South Africa alone, annual hybrid maize seed sales total about $350 million.
Source: DuPont Pioneer
Get The Newsletter Today!
