.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} The mid-September announcement that Monsanto Co. and Dow Chemical Co. would jointly develop the next generation of genetically modified corn seeds did not seem to faze leaders of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and its Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. subsidiary.

Erik Fyrwald, group vice president of DuPont’s agriculture and nutrition division, said the announcement “validates” that Herculex, a biotech corn seed Pioneer developed in collaboration with Dow, is currently the best product on the market.

Dean Oestreich, president of Pioneer, added, “Herculex is our product and … that collaboration is trying to get to that place by 2010.”

Monsanto and Dow said they would introduce a corn seed that would combine eight herbicide-tolerance and insect-protection genes by around 2010. DuPont leaders said they currently have a corn seed with five of these genes, commonly referred to as “triple stack,” relating to the three traits they carry, while competitors have products with three genes.

The comments were made during a Global Media Day at Pioneer’s Johnston headquarters, at which local, national and international reporters learned about how Pioneer is playing a key role in DuPont’s business. The event was part of a larger three-day conference, which primarily took place at DuPont’s headquarters in Wilmington, Del., and was a follow-up to a similar event more than five years ago, when DuPont created its business platforms.

DuPont’s agriculture and nutrition division has grown significantly since its acquisition of Pioneer in 1999. Ten years ago, the division generated less than $2 billion in sales. It had $6 billion in sales in 2006 and expects sales to increase 10 percent this year to $6.6 billion. Pioneer was responsible for $2.8 billion in revenues last year.

Pioneer expects its double-digit sales growth to continue as it expands into international markets, especially in Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe, Africa and parts of Asia, including India and China. Pioneer increased its corn market share in Brazil during its secondary growing season by 13 percent from 2006 to 2007, and though it has a 2 percent corn market share in China now, the company predicts it will boost that to 20 percent in the next few years.

Though Pioneer has been losing market share in the North America corn seed business over the past few years, it believes an introduction of new technologies and products will help it regain share over the next couple of years.

Pioneer has six new traits in the works, which it expects to introduce in the next decade. “These are big blockbuster opportunities for DuPont,” Fyrwald said.

Though corn products account for about 75 percent of Pioneer’s business, the company also is looking at other crops, including soybeans.

Bill Niebur, vice president of DuPont crop genetics research and development, announced that the company will commercialize soybean varieties developed using a technology that increases yields by as much as 12 percent per acre. Pioneer will introduce five varieties with this “accelerated yield technology” for the 2008 planting season and expects to fully roll out the technology by 2012.

In the next month, DuPont will introduce Rynaxypr insecticide in the Philippines and Indonesia, whose governments just approved it. The company expects the product, which provides insect control for fruits, vegetables and other specialty crops, field crops and turf, to be introduced in the United States next year and to be broadly available by 2009.

Pioneer was also in the process of developing a biotech cottonseed with a small company Monsanto agreed to acquire this year. Oestreich said Pioneer is in the process of trying to dismantle that deal.

Fyrwald stressed that population growth, an increase in affluent cultures eating meat and a desire to produce biofuels to help lessen consumers’ dependence on oil have created a demand for agricultural products and new technologies to meet these demands.

DuPont leaders claimed that the company is different from its competitors in that it not only develops new technologies and agricultural products, but also strives to connect those products to consumers. For example, it has developed a low-linolenic soybean, which is being used to create soy oil products with lower levels of trans fats.

“We believe technology and agriculture can enable agriculture to meet the food demand of the world very economically and meeting the needs of sustainability of biofuels and biomaterials,” said Oestreich.