Published on 26/07/2024
Much more than you might initially expect, says Corteva Agriscience NZ marketing manager Glen Surgenor.
And that’s good news all round as the world turns increasingly towards biological plant health inputs for commercial, environmental and consumer reasons.
In fact, if all goes to plan, this year could see the first of a completely new type of Corteva product released here as a result of the company’s significant global investment in a very different type of chemistry.
It’s now been over 12 months since Corteva acquired two innovative developers of what’s shaping up as the next generation of inputs for farmers and growers.
Symborg, based in Spain, specialises in microbiological technologies, and Stoller, based in the US, is one of the largest independent biological companies in the world.
Glen Surgenor says now that they’ve both been integrated into Corteva globally, the local team is eyeing up promising opportunities for potential deployment of these new technologies in NZ.
“Globally, biologicals are the next big growth area in plant health and crop protection. They are forecast to increase in market value from about $9 billion today, to $30-$35 billion by 2035, and our strategic direction as a company is to develop and launch solutions that support this transition.”
Several drivers are influencing this trend, he says.
“It’s becoming much more challenging to register and maintain registrations of traditional crop protection products both globally, and here in NZ. So it’s harder to bring new products to the market.
“And discovery of new molecules is slowing down. It’s still happening, but not nearly as fast as it was 20 years ago.
“Meantime on the market and consumer side of things, everyone’s looking for the softer touch, a more natural approach to producing the food they’re purchasing.”
Corteva is not new to natural products, he points out.
“We have over 20 years’ experience in research and discovery of these compounds, starting with Entrust Naturalyte, which is an organically certified, naturally derived insecticide and of course Questar fungicide with Inatreq active is also derived from a natural compound.”
As a complement to synthetic crop chemistry, biological products are already being implemented into commercial food production systems here and overseas, Surgenor says, with rising awareness and interest in this product category among NZ producers.
“It’s likely to be a slow burn in the initial stages. You can’t completely replace current products all at once, but the role played by biologicals in our existing crop protection and plant health programmes will increase over time. We see them as highly complementary.
”With an insider’s perspective, he’s excited about products and technology that Corteva has now folded into its global business as a result of acquiring Symborg and Stoller.
“There is some very cool stuff coming! It will probably be 18 months before we can roll out new technology from the Symborg and Stoller portfolios, but we are working hard to identify the best pathways into our market for these.”
Of particular interest is Symborg technology already deployed on farms overseas, which uses a natural bacterium to enhance plants’ nitrogen use efficiency.
Meantime, Corteva is progressing its plan to launch a different type of biological to the NZ market in the second half of this year, namely a product developed to mitigate the negative effects of stress on plant health.