News
New strong seed breeding collaboration in Germany
11/05/2022
Danish Agro group’s seed breeding improvement company, Nordic Seed, also owned by Vestjyllands Andel, has just entered into a strategic agreement with German agribusiness group Agravis Raiffeisen AG.
In precise terms Agravis purchases 50% of the shares in Nordic Seed’s subsidiary Nordic Seed Germany Gmbh, with breeding operations and field-testing based in Nienstädt. The new seed collaboration will ensure growth, generate an increased market share and allow the company to supply new, exciting varieties to even more farmers, especially in Germany.
Group CEO of Danish Agro, Henning Haahr, sees great prospects in the agreement.
“The Danish Agro group has a close and trusting collaboration with Agravis in Germany and on a number of markets. The decision to boost our common efforts with respect to seed varieties in Germany, is a natural progression of our collaboration. The agreement has tremendous potential, especially because we as a group are already represented in Germany through agribusiness Ceravis. Together with Agravis and through our seed corn programme we can create even more value for German farmers in the future,” he says.
Managing Director of Nordic Seed, Kim Bonde Petersen, is also happy about the agreement.
“Since Nordic Seed took over the breeding station in Nienstädt back in 2017, the company has successfully developed its hybrid rye programme, introduced a continental wheat programme and an oat programme, as well as testing winter barley, spring barley, peas and lupines on the German and Central European markets,” says Kim Bonde Petersen and continues,
“We have now reached a point where we wish to expand our breeding programme on an even larger scale within German and Central European agriculture. Therefore it is a great asset to us that Agravis has now wanted to join the group of owners. It is a good sign for the future that we can jointly develop Nordic Seed Germany, which in addition to its own breeding programme, will also offer representative varieties from other breeders. In future Nordic Seed Germany plans to form its own sales team, which will work on a professional basis to supply our varieties throughout all of Central and Southern Europe,” he states.
Nordic Seed is active on several Northern European markets. This includes testing new varieties in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany.