Raleigh, NC – At Syngenta’s North American Media Summit in late October, leaders addressed the news that the $43 billion sale to China National Chemical Corporation would be postponed until the first quarter of 2017. 
    

Ponsi Trivisvavet, president of Syngenta Seeds Inc., explained that the current agricultural economic environment is more challenging than ever to fund leading-edge research.     
    

“Commodity prices are decreasing,” she said. “It’s harder than ever to get approval of genetically modified traits. So the question becomes:  How much as an industry can we afford to invest in innovation?  ChemChina helps a lot in terms of investment.”
    

Jay Bradshaw, president of Syngenta Canada, offered some context.  When Syngenta was formed in 2000 – from the former companies of Novartis and AstraZeneca – the cost to register a new active ingredient for crop protection was about $111 million. Today, it’s $298 million – U.S. dollars.” 
    

He also explained that on average, it takes about 11 years from discovery of the molecule to commercialization and that means only about six years are left on the patent. The scale of investment is enormous, however Syngenta has managed to commercialize four genetically modified traits in the last six years. 
    

Consolidation is not unique to crop protection companies.  The same is happening at the retail level and in farm communities, Bradshaw said.   
    

Swiss-based Syngenta already sells one-fifth of the world’s pesticides. EU regulators are examining the merger because a Chem-China owned company – Adama Agricultural Solutions Inc. -- supplies generic alternatives. When the companies are 
combined, the question is whether farmers will have higher chemical costs or fewer available choices. 
    

EU anti-trust authorities, consulting with the U.S., Brazil and Canada, have set March 17, 2017 as the deadline for their review.  
    

Vern Hawkins, regional director for Syngenta’s North American business, said that the ChemChina deal is quite different than other mergers. “This is a shareholder purchase,” he said. “We’ve been clear that Syngenta will remain Syngenta in terms of governance of the board, decision rights and makeup of the board. It’s comforting to customers and to us that we’ll continue to bring value and partnerships forward.” 
    

What keeps Vern Hawkins up at night?  “I worry about the unpredictability of the business environment which is regulated from less than a sound science foundation. When you take safety factors to such an extreme degree, then the political component is a danger to the agricultural community. For example, if you’re a farmer, you look at the regulations around water and use patterns.  It’s difficult to manage farm size and have flexibility. I’m as much worried about regulations – without clarity – for farmers as I am about bringing forward new technology.” 
    

Those concerns echo true in Canada. However, there is encouraging news about a near-future fungicide. The active ingredient, adepidyn, is currently being assessed for registration under the Pest Control Products Act.  Growers can look for it within three to five years says Dr. Nancy Tout, head, Research and Development, Syngenta Canada. Upon registration, multiple brands containing the active ingredient will be marketed under the Miravis product line. 
    

Adepidyn is a new active ingredient in the carboxamide chemical class (FRAC group 7) from Syngenta that provides excellent, long lasting control of powdery mildews, leaf spots, and other fungal pathogens on vegetables as well as row crops. The first wave of crops to be registered will include fruiting and leafy vegetables, cereals, peanut, grapes, potatoes, soybeans, and corn. 
    

Preliminary research has shown residual control with adepidyn fungicide, at low rates in comparison to commercial standards, providing improved control of A. solani on potato and powdery mildew on cucurbits. 
     

Tout concludes: “The long path from molecule to product is not a linear path, it’s more like a rollercoaster but a journey that Syngenta is committed to seeing through right from discovery to when it reaches the grower. Syngenta’s Canadian research stations get molecules at their earliest stages of development for testing under Canadian conditions. These local results are important to the advancement of products going through the development process.”