Geneva, Switzerland
September 10, 2019
Corteva Agriscience and Pro Farm Technologies Ltd, a Finnish agricultural technology company focused on novel biologicals, today announced a strategic long-term exclusive commercial agreement in Europe. Together, they will develop and commercialize a suite of seed-applied biological products based on Pro Farm’s proprietary technology platform, to give European growers the best tools available to stimulate plant growth and improve plant health, resulting in improved yields and crop quality.
“As part of Corteva Agriscience’s mission to offer farmers complete solutions that help maximize their yield and tackle various challenges, we are excited to collaborate with Pro Farm Technologies to provide high-performance seed treatment products that respond to European growers’ needs while improving the overall health of the plant and taking into account the expectations of consumers,” said Andre Negreiros, Seed Applied Technologies Leader, Europe for Corteva Agriscience. “This collaboration reflects Corteva Agriscience’s approach to open innovation, leveraging collaborations around the world to pursue innovations that enhance growers’ productivity, environmental sustainability, and keep growing what matters – now and for generations to come.”
Pro Farm’s research into natural biopolymers has led to the development of a new biological platform based on plant-derived biologicals combined with proprietary and patent-protected formulations that are highly concentrated and bio-available. The resulting plant stimulants encourage earlier plant establishment, more robust plant emergence, and overall improved plant health.
Corteva will launch the first corn, sunflower, and oilseed-rape products based on Pro Farm’s biological platform in Europe in the 2020/21 season, with a target treatment coverage of over 10 million hectares.
“For Pro Farm, this is an excellent opportunity to have a large-scale impact with our biological offers to help growers meet the increasing demand in an ever more challenging environment. This agreement allows us to launch our robust biological solutions on millions of hectares supporting the whole food supply chain, starting with the grower,” said Matti Tiainen, CEO of Pro Farm Technologies.
“This scale and reach that Corteva is bringing to our platform could mean that by using Pro Farm’s plant-derived biological technology we would be helping produce additional yield in the billions of kilos in the EMA region by 2021 based on our field trials average yield gains for the target crops. For us this is a great opportunity to have a real, meaningful impact on the everyday life of the growers. We are also very humble and impressed to see Corteva’s teams in action and how closely they work with the growers in scale to bring the best possible tools into the market. This close relationship with growers also helps Pro Farm in our pipeline design as we aim to launch several biological products from our discovery platform for the growers together with Corteva within this long-term agreement.”
About Corteva Agriscience
Corteva Agriscience is a publicly traded, global pure-play agriculture company that provides farmers around the world with the most complete portfolio in the industry - including a balanced and diverse mix of seed, crop protection and digital solutions focused on maximizing productivity to enhance yield and profitability. With some of the most recognized brands in agriculture and an industry-leading product and technology pipeline well positioned to drive growth, the company is committed to working with stakeholders throughout the food system as it fulfills its promise to enrich the lives of those who produce and those who consume, ensuring progress for generations to come. Corteva Agriscience became an independent public company on June 1, 2019, and was previously the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont. More information can be found at www.corteva.com.
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About Pro Farm Technologies
Pro Farm Technologies is a biologicals company that is farmer-focused and science-based. Pro Farm seeks to improve plant health and grower’s productivity by sourcing some of the most valuable biopolymers in nature and building new, highly effective products on its biological platform. This proprietary biological platform allows Pro Farm to design crop and region-specific products for Corteva. In the longer term, they may also include additional growth promoting micro-organisms and other active ingredients in a very user-friendly and efficacious way. With clients around the world, Pro Farm is rapidly gaining a significant footprint in the seed-applied technologies space by delivering robust biological products that help growers to increase productivity while improving the overall plant health. Pro Farm Technologies has offices in Finland, Estonia, France (opening Q4/19) U.S., Brazil and Uruguay.