‘Corteva’, the agricultural division of DowDuPont grew by 20% in the first six months of the current year in India, informed the company’s South Asia Chief, KV Subbarao. While interacting with the media, Subbarao said “As against 7-8% growth experienced by the industry, we have recorded a growth of 20% in the first half of 2018.”
Subbarao desisted from disclosing the exact numbers as the company is in the procedure of getting listed on security exchanges, a process that would be concluded by June 2019.
It is important to mention that Corteva, created after the merger of agricultural businesses of DuPont, Dow Chemicals and Pioneer Hi-Bred, started operations in the country in January. It basically sells crop protection products and hybrid seeds. Its seed business is limited mainly to hybrid seeds of corn, rice, mustard, and bajra.
Subbarao further said “While we have 20 -30% market share in seed business (limited to those crops Corteva experiments in), we are amongst top 10 in crop protection.” Corteva at present has 35 seed products (legacy products from the merged entities), he told.
The Corteva chief also claimed that its corn hybrid seeds could help farmers increase the Rabi crop yield by 100% to 50 quintals per acre, mainly in Karnataka, Bihar and Maharashtra. The company also exports its hybrid rice seeds to the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia and limited quantities of millet, corn and mustard seeds to neighboring Pakistan.
Subbarao emphasized that the company has a good presence in crop protection business. Recently it has launched few new products –Rinskor herbicide and Pexalon insecticide -based on green chemistry.
Pexalon, which must be sprayed just once, defends the paddy crop against brown plant hoppers insects. These insects can bring down yield by 20 to 70 %.
