One of the world’s biggest forage seed firms is set to enter the sugar beet seed business by buying Syngenta’s.
Swiss ag chemical and seed firm Syngenta announced Thursday it will sell its sugar beet seed business to Danish forage and turf seed producer DLF Seeds for an undisclosed sum.
“Sugar beet seeds is a natural extension of our seeds business and it is an interesting high-value crop,” DLF Seeds CEO Truels Damsgaard said in a release.
“We see significant synergies within our technology and plant breeding tools benefiting both the sugar beet business and the forage and turf seed business.”
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As the harvest in southern Alberta presses on, a broker said that is one of the factors pulling feed prices lower in the region. Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge, added that lower cattle numbers in feedlots, plentiful amounts of grass for cattle to graze and a lacklustre export market also weighed on feed prices.
DLF “has a strong record in specialized seeds and in the integration of strategic acquisitions and offers excellent prospects for the sugar beet seeds business, enabling it to build on its expertise in serving industrial sugar producers,” Jeff Rowe, Syngenta’s president for global seeeds and North America, said in the same release.
The deal, pending “customary approval requirements,” is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of this year, the companies said.
DLF, owned mostly by a Danish seed growers’ co-operative, operates in Canada as DLF Pickseed, formed in 2013 when DLF bought Ontario-based forage seed firm Pickseed. — AGCanada.com Network
