Crop Production

DLG’s Agribusiness area covers all parts of crop production - everything from seed to harvest: seed grain, fertilizer, plant protection and lime for the fields. DLG breeds, tests and registers varieties of grain, oilseed rape, peas and maize for agriculture via its subsidiary Sejet Planteforædling. 

Fertilizer and plant protection are nutrition and medicine for crops. Fertilizer and plant protection serve as nutrition and medicine for crops and help them to thrive during the growing season. 
  
DLG sells fertilizer and plant protection products but does not produce them itself. The market for plant protection and fertilizer products is generally declining in countries like Denmark, Germany and Sweden.

CROPS OF THE FUTURE NEED TO HAVE HIGHER QUALITY AND TRACEABILITY
Developing and assuring the quality of future grain varieties is an important part of DLG’s strategy for the business area within agribusiness; comprising seed grain, fertilizer and plant protection. This is also where DLG will spread the use of DLG’s own newly developed varieties to subsidiaries. Certification – a crop’s guarantee of quality – will also be in focus to enable DLG to offer quality and traceability.

DLG will invest heavily in crop breeding and develop and produce improved new crop varieties. This includes hybrids, which are more robust and which contribute to agriculture by being more eco-friendly and having higher yields. They are better at resisting the increasing challenges posed by climate change. This includes a malting variety malted at lower temperatures, which saves energy. 

Sejet secures the robust crops of the future
DLG’s largest and most focused R&D investment takes place at Sejet Planteforædling, which is owned by DLG and Carlsberg. The company is key for this business area. For instance, the company is responsible for developing Sebastian, one of Europe’s most widely used malting barley varieties.

Certifications have high priority
Certifications of seed grain will continue to be a DLG action area. Seed grain is produced and sold as a certified product. This means that it has been treated with fungicide, cleansed of weed seeds and has a “pedigree” which guarantees its purity. The degree of certification varies from one country to the next. For instance, Denmark has a high degree of certification (90%), compared to Sweden (75%), Germany (45%) and Poland and the Baltic States (6–7%).

“These percentages need to be increased as increasing the rate of certification has great potential. Everyone is currently demanding transparency, traceability and quality, and we have learned rewarding lessons in this area, so it makes perfect sense to disseminate what we have learned to DLG’s business areas across the countries,” Bent Nissen says.