World AgriLife Chinese: Syngenta Crop Protection’s biennial media summit was held in New Orleans, USA, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1. During the meeting, Vern Hawkins, president of Syngenta Crop Protection, discussed supply chain and other topics of concern to growers. He said that 2023 will be like this year and that securing supplies of certain herbicides may be a challenge for farmers and that plant protection products will cost more. He also mentioned the company’s ongoing litigation, which may affect growers in the future. New products and other information were also presented at the meeting. The event also included a media tour of Syngenta’s main plant protection manufacturing and packaging plant in San Gabriel, Louisiana, which produces products such as atrazine.
The following media interviews were conducted.
1. What do you want farmers to know about 2023, especially in terms of plant protection product availability?
Hawkins: 2023 is going to be another challenging year. I think some product availability will improve, but others will still be limited. We’ve been working with our retail partners to make sure we have good forecasting options for customer purchasing plans. I think farmers need to stay in close contact with their suppliers so they can source farm supplies to meet planting needs. For some herbicide ingredients, the tightness in some parts of the supply chain is easing, but there are still many ingredients that are in short supply, which makes it difficult to produce some products ahead of the planting season.
2. What specific plant protection products are you referring to? What agrochemicals might farmers want to target?
Hawkins: It’s a little difficult to pinpoint on one product specifically. But we have found that there are supply constraints on some corn herbicide chemistries due to the need for raw materials from all suppliers. The most important thing we need to do is understand farmers’ intent to use herbicides, because we still adjust the mix of those active ingredients in the final product, and we have a ration of active ingredients used to make the products farmers plan to buy. That’s an important part of our supply chain program that’s currently underway.
Hawkins said the ingredients used to make chloroacetamide herbicides, the active ingredients in Group 15 products, isoparaquat, ethephon and alachlor, have been difficult to obtain. Brands that may be involved include Acuron, Dual II Magnum and others.
3. What should farmers expect in terms of pricing for plant protection products in 2023 and beyond?
Hawkins: Prices will continue to rise in 2023. The price range will be quite wide depending on the product type, but typically it will probably be in the single digits or close to 10 percent. Many farmers have probably already seen that. The biggest reasons are higher raw material prices leading to higher costs, and logistics remain expensive. Hopefully there will be some reduction in these costs as the 23 to 24 years go by.
Source: World Agrochemical Network
Post time: Nov-17-2022