November 13 will mark the 20 year anniversary of the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and Zeneca Agrochemicals to form Syngenta. Vern Hawkins, president of Syngenta Crop Protection and Justin Wolfe, president of Syngenta Seeds recently reflected on this milestone and shared the company’s vision for its future.
Hawkins says his career includes 35 years with legacy Syngenta companies, which provides a thread in his leadership pulled through to today.
“I was with a legacy company ICI and then Zeneca, and listen, learn, and lead, really was a foundational position that we lived and worked by back in that era,” Hawkins says. “It created a really strong engagement inference relating to understanding what folks’ needs were, engaging with them in a way to learn, but also created an obligation to act and make decisions as you move from learning to leading.”
Hawkins says listening to farmers has helped focus their product development and reinforced their approach to have a refreshed portfolio with products for stronger performance and benefits. He says having a robust product portfolio is important to address challenges and provide retail partners a diverse offering to appeal to different farmer segments. The company has committed $1 billion a year to research and development.
“We have a relationship with the channel that recognizes they have a number of different types of growers in terms of their needs, some very much on the technology end of the spectrum, high ROI focus, some more on the value-oriented end, and looking for maybe something that’s just adequate,” Hawkins says. “That’s a really important thing, to have a combination of delivering the existing business in a supportive way, as well as reinforcing the partnership that a retailer has with Syngenta about their investing in a long-term future, because of the new products and the support that we’re giving them. And that’s especially important right now when a number of our competitors are going through change in who leads their company, as well as what their strategies are in terms of how they go to market.”
Regarding the competitive landscape in crop input suppliers, Hawkins says Syngenta is investing in its relationships with the retail channel.
“We’re seeing our competitors trying to figure out how best to leverage the opportunities of consolidation. And much of it does go beyond the technology that they’re accessing by bringing two large companies together, and is now creating a differential approach to market, which is creating some tension and unease,” Hawkins says. “I think that is a space to watch as we go forward, is what go to market strategies are going to be successful, and what alignment should we expect to see between suppliers and retailers versus those that choose to be much more grower-oriented or self-serving in their strategies?”
As head of Syngenta Seeds, Wolfe provides his division as an example of how the company is investing in its future.
“We’re thinking about investing to grow. So we started a few years back with a commitment to invest $400 million in the US seed business, and we had a number of announcements over the past few years, whether it’s the Nampa site, which was a $30 million site, or the northern Illinois site, which is another $35 million site. We’ve added a lot of people. So we’ve continued to invest in a way that keeps us growing and helps us be more competitive against those other big guys. There’s going to be heightened competitiveness, more trait offerings. I think our goal as a company in the next 10 years is going to continue to be how we help farmers navigate in sometimes what can be a very confusing market, not only on the number of offerings, but you see digital and all these sorts of things come in, and so it can get confusing. I think it’s our role to help bring clarity out of chaos.”
As ag retailers have had their own consolidation and mergers in the marketplace, Syngenta says that has brought a series of discussions with the company.
“We’ve been engaged in some real conversations with go to market strategy preferences from some of these consolidated coops, and we’ve also had stronger partnership conversations with some that recognize they need to be much more selective around who they’re working with to support them in delivery of their business to the grower. And so it’s been a little bit of a mixed discussion set, but one that I think overall has been healthy, because we are engaged in what are the needs, what are our shared perspectives on where the industry is going,” Hawkins says.
Specific to challenges in 2020, Hawkins and Wolfe say two have risen to the top: COVID-19 and tight farm economics.
“It’s been a challenging year for everyone in the industry. We’ve certainly continued to have a connection with our channel partner customers, and there’s a huge competitiveness in the business again this year. Certainly the challenges of how to engage with farmer customers and your employee base through COVID has been one contributor. The economics has been another contributor,” Hawkins says.
Wolfe says creativity with a focus on safety has brought new ideas for engagement.
“It’s a relationship business, and our teams have found really creative ways, whether it’s virtual field days or tailgate talks or whatever, they’ve been very, very creative on how they’ve been able to continue to be quite active, keep themselves safe, and keep our customers safe at the same time,” he says.
And the leaders share some optimism for how the 2021 crop year is shaping together with a successful harvest, positive pricing movements, and some certainty around dicamba.
“One area we’ve seen a lot of uncertainty this year is with farmers navigating through what decision they’re going to make with soybean traits, for example. Because there’s been kind of one show with traits over the years, and there’s been some uncertainty with the XtendFlex Soybeans. That’s getting a bit more clarity too, and we’ve seen farmers really trying to grapple with the decisions, what are they going to do and how are they going to make these decisions? And so these are areas where we try to help them navigate that, making sure that we’re in a good position to offer them choice, so that as they’re firming up their decisions, that we’re in a place to be able to help supply them so they can grow their crop next year,” Wolfe says.
The theme of choice is an important one for the future of the Syngenta product pipeline.
“This is probably the strongest position we’ve been in in a long, long time, to offer really wide trait choice options in soybeans on some really great genetics, as well as we have a great corn lineup as well. And between both of those areas, I’m quite excited for our ability to be able to serve farmers well this next year,” Wolfe says. “In corn, we’re also in a great position, we have over 40% plus of our products this year are in new and growth products, and they’re on, with above and below ground pest resistance with E-Z Refuge. So this is probably the strongest position we’ve been in in corn in quite some time, and as we take yields off, they’re fully fresh coming off the farm, we’re seeing a lot of great performance results this year.”
Looking to the future, Hawkins says farmers and retailers can expect a diverse product portfolio from Syngenta, including the company’s recent acquisition of biologicals-focused Valagro. There will also be an increased digitization of the business.
“We’ve got about 25% of our crop protection business now digitally engaged with farmers, with full channel support because of the trust and confidence that we built in our model, and that provides us an opportunity to learn every day, and to make sure that we’re bringing either more technology to them, or more services,” Hawkins says. “We’ve also recognized that there are many types of grower needs, and that some of our longstanding chemistries like atrazine are also really important to many farmers. And so we’ve not only demonstrated a commitment to research and develop new chemistry, but to ensure that we have protection and support for those that continue to be safe and add real value to our farmers. And so the existing technology commitment as well as new technology is certainly a space that we believe differentiates us from our competitors in many areas, and one that our farmers truly value.”
Wolfe adds that technology will increase the momentum for advances in technology as well as realization of the benefits.
“There’s no question that things will evolve on farm very quickly and look different, and so we need to be very agile in how we continue to serve our channel partners, serve our customers as we go forward. And there’s some great examples of how we’ve evolved our digital strategy, get more agronomic and make agronomic recommendations for farmers. There’s no question that seed, seed selection, crop chemistry, crop chemistry recommendations, all these things are going to get more linked to digital and digital recommendations in the future,” he says.
