Ghent, Belgium
June 11, 2012

Devgen nv (Euronext Brussels: DEVG), the agro-biotech company that shapes the field of hybrid rice in India and Southeast Asia and innovates in crop protection technologies, today announced that the company received a recognition award from the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) in the Philippines for its achievement as developer of three new hybrid rice varieties.

Devgen welcomes the award as the company only recently obtained registration for these three new hybrid seeds. One of these products, Frontline GoldTM, is now in the market in the Philippines. This high yielding rice seed is of early duration and has an excellent grain quality ideally suited for consumption. A second product in the same maturity segment is due for field demonstration trials in the coming wet season.

The award was conferred at the annual meeting of the Rice Technical Working Group of the NSIC. At the occasion of the same annual meeting, the results of the most recent government trials with hybrid rice seeds in the registration process were released. These trials took place in the wet season which ran from June till November 2011. Devgen participated in the trials alongside nine other seed companies and breeding institutions active in the country. A Devgen pipeline hybrid ranked first for grain yield per hectare in the key medium maturity segment. Two other Devgen pipeline products obtained strong second and fourth places in the early maturity segment. The results also showed other important characteristics of Devgen’s hybrid seeds such as disease and insect resistance as well as short grain length and highly desirable grain quality.

Both the newly registered and pipeline products of Devgen are highly adapted for the wet season. Today only few hybrids in the Philippines are suited for this season in which typhoons, pests and diseases are frequently occurring.

“This acknowledgement reflects both the commitment and success of Devgen and its Philippine research team to innovate in hybrid rice breeding in Southeast Asia,” says Thierry Bogaert, CEO of Devgen. “Devgen now has a solid portfolio of premium rice hybrids that deliver value to the farmer. These and our pipeline of premium products will form the basis of a sustainable hybrid rice business in the country.”

Rice is the most important food crop in the Philippines, a country of almost 100 million inhabitants. About 200,000 of the 4.4 million hectares of rice acreage in the country is currently planted with hybrid rice, which only represents a hybridization rate of 4.5%, compared to 60% in China. The total potential market volume if hybrid seed becomes widely adopted in the Philippines is over 33,000 tons of seed, with a total value of more than € 120 million.

Website: http://www.devgen.com

Published: June 11, 2012