Wilmington, Delaware
April 28, 2008
Pioneer corn planted in China.
DuPont partnerships with
China’s public and private sectors will help increase farm
productivity in the country and increase total global supply of
key agricultural products, Bill Niebur, vice president -- DuPont
Crop Genetics Research and Development, told attendees at the
“Globalization of the Seed Industry” Biotechnology and
Agriculture Summit Friday. The summit was organized by the
Science and Technology Commission of the Beijing Municipal
Government.
“We need to increase the productivity of each acre of land for
China to achieve food security – and biotechnology will be a key
technology in doing so,” Bill said. “China has experienced
productivity gains in rice and corn production through
hybridization, but growth has reached a plateau. New
technologies are needed to achieve the step-change increase in
corn and rice production that is required to meet China’s
growing demand for grain.”
China currently is feeding 20 percent of the global population
with only 9 percent of the world’s arable land. The country’s
rapidly growing population and rising income have increased
demand for agricultural products.
As part of DuPont’s growth in China, DuPont business
Pioneer Hi-Bred is
committing resources to help improve the productivity of Chinese
farmers. It established a business representative office in
Beijing in 1997. A year later, Pioneer began breeding and
testing corn hybrids for China’s summer and spring corn areas.
Pioneer established a summer corn joint venture in China –
Shandong Denghai Pioneer Seeds Co., Ltd. – in 2002. In 2006,
Pioneer announced its second joint venture with one of China’s
largest seed production companies, Dunhuang Seed Co. Ltd. |
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