Investments in getting kernels right

IVESDALE, Ill. — In the years leading up to being named president and CEO, Brian Barker was familiar with AgReliant Genetics. Then he received a call.

“I got a phone call and they said, ‘We have an opportunity with AgReliant. Do you know them?’ I said, ‘Yes, I know AgriGold, LG and Pride,’” said Barker to kick off the annual AgriGold Specialty Crops Conference on June 18.

“‘I know a lot of people that have worked with that company and I know the reputation. It’s really a premier corn company and AgriGold is a premier corn brand. I’ve competed with them on the other side many, many years, and I have a lot of respect for them.’ I said I’d be very interested in that.”

Prior to joining AgReliant last September, Barker served as the vice president for the Multi-Channel Seeds Business Unit at Corteva, where he spearheaded the development and successful implementation of the new U.S. multi-channel brand strategy, achieving margin growth objectives across all functions.

Additionally, as the global business director for Corn Biotech and Seeds, he directed business strategy, technology development and asset management efforts, resulting in doubled sales within four years.

During his time as global business director, “I got involved in a lot of the technology traits, specialty products. This was back in the days when high oil corn was really going strong and trying to understand some of the different markets and different applications,” Barker said.

“I learned very quickly and knew from my experiences with this company over the years that AgReliant and, of course, AgriGold brand, are really focused on corn. We are a corn breeding company.

“We are part of a network owned by two companies. One of them is a 150-year-old German company that has been in the corn business for a long, long time, KWS. The other is a very, very large French cooperative, Limagrain. When you combine them together with AgReliant, we are the fourth biggest corn breeding company in the world.”

Locally Focused

Although among the leaders in global corn breeding, Barker stressed the importance of having business plans that work closely with customers at the local level.

“You look at the brands in AgriGold, LG and Pride that represent us, and we want to feel small, we want to feel intimate, we want to be able to have people, including myself, that interact with you, that understand what your special needs are,” he said.

“Not just the regular mainstream corn that we’re selling, but some of those specialty markets and end-uses for customers all the way down the stream to consumers — we want to understand all of that, and be very intimate, but at the same time we do bring a lot of big global capabilities to do a lot of different things where we really are focused on our core crop, corn.

“The one thing that AgReliant has always had over the years, and I’ve seen that as a competitor and now I see it as a part of the company, is we have great people, people who are not only skilled at what they do, but they’re very dedicated.”

Breeding Program

AgReliant Genetics leverages the development of its own lines with a direct access to a global corn germplasm pool.

“We have real breeding programs. We don’t just take traits and put them into corn, which a lot of people talk about as being breeding,” Barker said.

“If you’re in a corn or a plant breeding program, you fundamentally create and patent inbreds that are yours, that are proprietary, which we do by the thousands every year. You take those and combine them into hybrids which we do by the thousands every year in stations like this all over the Midwest.”

AgReliant has eight research stations in the Midwest Corn Belt, including the site near Ivesdale in east-central Illinois, and invests tens of millions of dollars a year in its breeding program.

“From that, we produce proprietary products and we also supplement that with other partnerships to bring in materials from the outside. We can do both of those, which is a great benefit to us. It allows us to sell our genetics and the things we build and develop, but it also allows us to bring in some products that our customers need where it’s easier for us to do that than to develop it on our own,” Barker said.

“It’s a great symbiotic partnership that we have and we’re very fortunate to be able to have that optionality in our business going forward.

“We have probably one of the best quality labs I’ve seen in the industry in Brimfield, Illinois, and I’ve seen all of them. I’ve seen Syngenta, Corteva, Pioneer, DeKalb and Monsanto. I’ve seen them all over the years in person.

“The Brimfield lab is world class and is as good as I’ve ever seen to the point where people are constantly asking us if they could borrow out capabilities and pay us for them.”

Specialty Corn

AgReliant’s core seed business not only includes the regular No. 2 yellow dent that is used on many farms, but it has also been a longtime developer of specialty corn. That will continue.

“We are focused on corn, not just for the commodity markets, but for over two decades we’ve had people that come and look at specialty applications, not only for things like white corn or waxy corn or offering something special, but we have a lot of products that are mainstream,” Barker said.

“They are what we call dual-purpose products, that you can grow very effectively, make a big yield, have good standability on a farmer’s acres, and they can sell them to an elevator.

“But some of those products when we look at them and select them and test them, look really good in terms of some specialty characteristics that might be interesting to you. We have all of that. We dedicate time and resources to it.”

Investments

The size of investment in trying to get those little yellow No. 2 dent kernels right through breeding and research is the same or larger than the resources invested across the entire U.S. crop protection market, according to Barker.

“Those little corn kernels are really like a microchip. They get billions of dollars in investment, high technology, lots of scrutiny, lots of development, lots of testing, lots of customization, because here in the U.S. market, the farmers expect high performance,” he said.

“So, the breeding has to be very local and it has to be very, very matched with the local diseases, the local environments, the local soils and the local climates. Breeding programs get broken down into a lot of very small local pieces to generate local data.

“The same with some of the specialty products. If we’re looking for something that has certain levels of non-GMO or certain levels of baking properties or usability or nutrition, it has to be tested and those also have to be developed from a production standpoint in local markets like this.

“We have all the capabilities to be able to do that. We do it every year. We’re going to continue to do it, and that’s what we’re really going to focus on, and that hopefully will benefit all of you.”