DuPont upbeat about crop protection biz in India

DuPont says that it will introduce in India one new pesticide product every year over the next decade.

These would cover a range of insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and nematicides, based on the $36-billion US major’s proprietary chemistry.

“We may be only the sixth largest global agrochemical company behind Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences. But we have the most robust product pipeline that we also want to bring to India,” Rik L Miller, President, DuPont Crop Protection, told Business Line.

India’s intellectual property rights regime has registered “marked improvement” in recent times.

“Although the prosecution and enforcement mechanism here may not be as strong as in the US and Western Europe, it is encouraging enough for an MNC such as DuPont to operate and introduce new products based on our proprietary chemistry,” he said.

He cited the example of Rynaxypyr, a patented insecticide molecule marketed as ‘Coragen’ suspension concentrate solution and ‘Ferterra’ granular formulation.

Rynaxypyr – used against a broad spectrum of lepidopteran insect pests whose larvae bore into and feed on the tender shoots, stems, flower buds and fruits of crops from paddy, sugarcane and soyabean to pulses and vegetables – was launched globally as well as in India in 2008.

In 2013, sales of Rynaxypyr crossed $1 billion globally, of which more than a tenth came from India. “No crop protection molecule in history has achieved annual sales of over $1 billion in such a short period of time. We are happy that India, too, has contributed to this, with about 6.5 million acres of crop area treated with Rynaxypyr in the country last year,” noted Miller.

Rynaxypyr – the actual molecule is called chlorantraniliprole – is based on a new class of insecticides known as anthranilic diamides.

These basically work on the ‘ryanodine receptors’ in insect pests regulating the release of stored calcium critical for their muscle function. By binding to these receptors, the diamide compounds cause uncontrolled release and depletion of calcium, leading to muscle paralysis and ultimately death of the insects.

In the current kharif season, DuPont has launched yet another insecticide Cyazypyr (or cyantraniliprole, as the active ingredient molecule is called), that is being sold as ‘Benevia’ oil dispersible solution.

Cyazypyr is again based on the same anthranilic diamide chemistry, though this product can control both lepidopteran (borers) and sucking pests (white fly, thrips, aphids, etc).

“Benevia is effective when applied at an early crop stage (within the first 25-30 days window), whereas Rynaxypyr is for later stage (after 60-70 days). We also recommend farmers to use some other insecticide, say Indoxacarb, in between so as to avoid back-to-back application of the same chemistry. This reduces the chances of build-up of resistance by the pests”, Miller explained.

The patents of both Rynaxypyr and Cyazypyr are valid up to the early 2020s, which guarantees protection and extra pricing power for the next 8-9 years or so.

“The Indian farmer is willing to pay a premium if he sees the product vastly reducing crop yield losses. There is no better proof of this than the adoption rates we have seen for Rynaxypyr,” Miller claimed.

DuPont is also introducing this year in India a fungicide ‘Galileo’, mainly for control of rice blast. The active ingredient in this, picoxystrobin, was an original invention of Sygenta.

“We subsequently acquired this and developed it further for use against soyabean rust,” Miller added.

COMMENT NOW