August 23, 2019
Standing in a cornfield on a warm August day, Ryan Myers, Pioneer U.S. corn lead, told attendees at a media event that the company was going to change how it talks about products and technology. “We’re going to think, act and feel different than in the past,” he says. “We’re going to be more aggressive in our discussion about yield and performance.”
Pioneer, now part of Corteva, the U.S.-based, ag-focused company birthed in 2019 as a spinoff of the merger of Dow and DuPont, appears to be digging in on its history and pushing harder into the market. A changed competitive landscape has developed with the last round of mergers and acquisitions now complete. And in the seed business, Myers admits that Pioneer is “taking the gloves off” to be scrappier than in the past.
He notes that the company will be focusing on its competitive advantage in a way that customers have “not seen before.” But what does that mean?
For a company that’s been marketing hybrid corn since 1926, there’s a long history of innovation and tech on which to build. “We’re going to talk about a revolution that’s a significant change in an organization,” he says. “Eight years ago, we decided that the 2-bushel-per-acre increase in corn yield was not going to be good enough. We needed to have more yield and be more consistent in total product performance than in the past.”