DuPont executive vice president James C. Collins discussed priorities for the company's agriculture segment March 3 at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2016 Global Agriculture and Chemicals Conference.

DuPont headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo: Mark Makela/Getty Images)

"With the recent changes we have made to simplify and streamline our organization, I am focused squarely on agriculture with three clear priorities – delivering our 2016 cost savings and operating earnings commitments, ensuring we deliver our exciting pipeline in agriculture, and completing the proposed merger of equals with The Dow Chemical Company, including achieving the cost and growth synergies in agriculture," Collins said. "While markets remain dynamic, we are not seeing anything significantly different in agriculture market conditions from what we communicated in January as part of our fourth quarter 2015 earnings release.  As we look to the future, our teams are very excited about the proposed merger, the intended separation and the opportunity we have to create the world's leading production agriculture business."  

Related story: Dow, DuPont announce site structure

An increasing global population and an expanding middle-class's desire for more and better food are expected to continue to drive sustainable growth in demand for grain and other agricultural products over the long-term. With limited opportunities for new land to be put into production, the world will need increased productivity on every acre. 

"This creates attractive long-term growth opportunities for DuPont Agriculture to address these challenges through a continuing commitment to productive innovation," Collins said.

The agriculture research pipeline for DuPont includes launches of new corn and soybean genetics, including DuPont Leptra corn hybrids in Brazil, Qrome corn hybrids in North America, Zorvec disease control products and Pyraxalt insect control products.

Related story: DuPont hires Harden

To view a full copy of the presentation, visit the "Events & Presentations" page on the DuPont Investor Center.

Related story: It's official: Dow, DuPont to merge

Source: DuPont

Read more: CBCNews: CEOs of Dow, DuPont get $80 million golden parachute in merger