Corteva Celebrates Five Years with all Eyes Forward

This June, Corteva celebrates its fifth anniversary. In its first years of existence, Corteva had two key priorities. The first was to merge successfully. The bringing together of essentially three entities — Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Crop Protection, and DuPont Pioneer — was no small challenge.

“Our step one was: how do we bring the organization together and become something new?” Onstot says. “How do we leverage having so much history and so much experience yet not let that slow us down from where we want to be going into the future? That’s been a significant accomplishment that I think we've done very successfully. We’re Corteva: everyone wears the same hat now.”

Priority two was clarifying the new organization’s goals and focus.

“Corteva’s mission is to enrich lives: the lives of those who produce and those who consume. If you think about that statement, it means a lot. Being a pure-play ag company, the only way we win is if our farmers — if our customers — win in the marketplace. That's brought a lot of clarity on where we want to focus,” Onstot says.

Though Corteva is an agricultural input company, its focus extends well beyond delivering products and technologies.

“It's about how do we put those into the hands of farmers, and ultimately, how do we help those farmers utilize those products to maximize production so we can feed more people with healthier, more nutritious diets in an ever changing, ever more challenging market. There are a lot of dynamics coming at us, so a critical component is our continuing to evolve,” Onstot says.

Any company, particularly one navigating the human and systems integration of a major merger and new branding, faces challenges. In Corteva’s case, its earliest days were upended by the global pandemic.

“Our company culture is to look for opportunity in challenge,” Onstot says. “Farmers didn’t stop through the pandemic, so we had to pivot to prepare digital solutions and tools to continue to

interact with and help them. Whenever there’s a challenge, it usually signifies that there’s something we can improve or somewhere we can add value.”

While looking backwards is important, Corteva’s primary gaze is focused full steam ahead. Corteva has enjoyed continuous growth over the past five years; now the goal is to build additional momentum. That starts via product innovation driven by Corteva’s R&D pipeline.

“Our goal to continue to increase our R&D investment over time,” Onstot says. “It’s critically important to continue to invest to ensure we can support future generations and future solutions that add value for farmers. With technological advancement exploding in every discipline, an increasingly important piece of Corteva’s strategy is partnership and collaboration. Biologicals are a case in point. Biologicals are an expanding, frontier market that is becoming a significant piece of the overall industry. Wanting to participate in that sphere but not having a significant position, Corteva recently acquired two leading biologicals companies, which leapfrogged Corteva into becoming a major player in the biologicals market.

“We’ve got a great R&D engine but bringing the outside in where we're not the experts and really leveraging those opportunities to continue to add more value for our farmers is key,” Onstot says.

A third priority area for opportunity and growth over the next few years is a solutions-based approach. “We bring all the pieces of our portfolio, then add to that by working with customers so they really understand how to use the tools together to maximize total value,” Onstot says.

What are Corteva’s biggest near-term growth opportunities? Onstot has his eye on a couple:

“Continuing to deliver industry leading solutions that create value for our customers is where I believe that we will see the biggest near-term growth.”

He also sees opportunity in improving germplasm, both thanks to new genomic technologies and due to necessity: the

market will have to continuously improve in its ability to meet today and tomorrow’s changing environmental challenges.

“That’s an exciting space where we’re continuing to make significant advancements,” he says.

Paired with germplasm, of course are the other components of a complete seed solution: seed treatments, traits and — increasingly important — the real time digital agronomy and data solutions that help individual farmers make the best decisions for their unique acres.

“It’s not only about bringing the hybrid and saying, ‘Good luck!’. It’s about ensuring we use data to provide insights on how to pick the right product and place it at the right farm, in the right soil type and manage it the right way. It’s not just about focus on one piece. It’s bringing a complete solution through a suite of tools and solutions,” he adds.

One thing is certain for agriculture: there’s more change ahead. Companies that can nimbly adapt and evolve to capture new opportunities will be the most successful, so long as they keep customer needs their top priority.

“What I get excited about is being part of the solutions and continuing to add value for our customers,” says Onstot. “I'm passionate about watching people —our customers, our employees, consumers in the marketplace — win.”

Casey Onstot - Europe, Middle East & Africa Marketing Leader at Corteva Agriscience