Separating its crop-seed unit from its pesticide business could help shield its seeds from any potential future liabilities associated with its pest and weed-killing chemicals, the report said, adding that the company is expected to reveal plans soon, barring any last-minute snags.

Corteva, spun off from chemical conglomerate DowDuPont in 2019, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Shares of the company rose 1.6 per cent in extended trading and it had a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion (C$69.2 billion) as of Friday.

Its possible split underscores a growing wave of corporate separations in 2025, as major companies such as Honeywell, Kraft Heinz and Warner Bros. Discovery respond to investor calls for restructuring.

Last year, DuPont had also planned to split into three publicly traded units to pursue focused growth, but has now decided against selling its water and protection unit.

The agrichemicals industry has been grappling with a potential fallout from shifting tariff policies, which are expected to lower demand and curb farmers’ spending.

Corteva is among the largest crop-protection product makers in the United States, competing with the likes of Syngenta and German firms BASF and Bayer.

In August, Corteva raised its annual adjusted profit and sales forecast following strong performance in the first half of the year.

DowDuPont was formed in 2017 after the merger of DuPont and Dow Chemical. Two years later, it spun off its chemical business as Dow and the agribusiness division into Corteva, with DuPont remaining on as the company it is today.

-Reporting by Pooja Menon in Bengaluru

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The company is building two new product distribution centres.

The warehouse in Brandon is scheduled to open Sept. 1, 2025, while the one in Grand Prairie, Alta., will begin operations on Jan. 1, 2026.

Follow all of our Ag in Motion coverage at the Western Producer.

Those are two big growth markets for FBN. The company had been working with third party warehouses but decided to take more control of product distribution.

“We think that we can grow the business on our own faster and better by doing it ourselves,” FBN general manager Breen Neeser said during an interview at Ag in Motion 2025.

FBN has a big warehouse in Saskatoon, another in Yorkton and one in Langley, B.C. that it is in the process of selling.

The two new distribution centres will stock all FBN’s agricultural product line.

Neeser said the expansion is not related to competitor AgraCity announcing that it was having cash flow problems, but it hasn’t hurt the project.

“We’ve been able to hire a couple of their former salespeople,” he said.

FBN is also in the process of expanding its crop input offerings beyond agricultural chemicals.

The company recently launched six bulk liquid fertilizer products.

FBN had already dipped its “toe in the water” with its Pro Ag fertilizer products, which were distributed through the Langley warehouse.

However, this is a new venture with a Saskatoon company that manufactures fertilizers for pre-seed and post-seed applications.

Neeser said it is way better to be working with a company in the heart of the Prairie region than attempting to do it from a distance.

“The fertilizer business is freight sensitive,” said Neeser.

“You can only go so far on a truck before you market yourself out on cost.”

The company is selling both nitrogen-based and phosphorous-based products.

“They’re all blended fertilizers,” he said.

Nigel Buffone, senior director of crop protection with FBN, said the company has not forgotten about its core business, launching 10 new crop protection products and co-packs for wheat in 2025.

FBN is attempting to provide farmers with the closest thing to pre-mix products by using its manufacturing facilities to package products together in case sizes such as 40, 160 and 320 acres.

Those co-packs are designed to make life easy for growers, eliminating the math.

Buffone said the company is identifying successful herbicides and bringing those products to its members.

“I think in the cereals market, we will have a solution for every acre next year,” he said.

Neeser said the next venture for the company will be livestock products.

“We’ll probably dip our toe in the water this fall and get into some of those,” he said.

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The Ludwigshafen-based chemical giant had already warned that it was facing high levels of uncertainty from U.S. tariffs and the potential backlash from other countries, cautioning that the threat of trade duties was prompting customers to order more cautiously overall.

Why it matters: BASF is a key supplier of crop protection products for Canadian farmers.

In an unscheduled release of preliminary results on Friday, BASF said that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), before special items, would likely be between 7.3 billion euros ($C11.67 billion) and 7.7 billion euros in 2025.

That is a reduction from its previous outlook of between 8.0 billion euros and 8.4 billion euros.

“Global gross domestic product is projected to grow less in 2025 than previously assumed. This development is essentially attributable to the U.S. tariffs,” it said.

“In 2025, market demand for chemical products will likely grow less than previously expected,” the company added.

The company also announced that second-quarter operating profit declined 9.7 per cent, in line with market expectations.

EBITDA before special items dropped to 1.77 billion euros, right in line with consensus posted on the company’s website, but lower than the 1.96 billion euros generated a year earlier.

—Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Tom Sims

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“AgraCity has experienced some cash flow issues and has been in a process to refinance our business,” the firm said in its message to farmers.

“The process has unfortunately taken much longer than expected and has resulted in product availability issues this spring.”

As a result, the firm will be unable to deliver outstanding product to its customers in a timely manner this spring.

“All outstanding product orders are being cancelled and being converted into a product credit,” AgraCity told its customers.

“We want to inform everyone that the sales team worked tirelessly to the best of their ability to meet the needs of their customers and was caught off guard, as we all were, by the delay of the refinancing efforts.”

Orders not delivered

A farmer from the North Battleford, Sask., area, who requested anonymity, told the Western Producer that he prebought $54,000 of glyphosate from AgraCity that was supposed to show up on his farm during the winter months.

It did not.

“I got calling my representative in the spring and there was no chance of any glyphosate showing up,” said the grower.

“They were hoping for new crop chemical, is what I was told.”

He also purchased $27,000 of glufosinate from the company in the fall of 2024 that never arrived, he alleges.

He has given up on receiving any of the herbicide that he ordered and paid for.

The farmer is speaking to a lawyer about what steps he can take.

A scan of the Better Business Bureau website shows this isn’t the first time customers have claimed the company left them high and dry.

An anonymous complainant says they ordered $34,000 of product from AgraCity in April 2022 and then immediately cancelled the order.

“The product was charged to our credit card and has yet to be reimbursed,” the person stated in the complaint.

AgraCity responded to the complaint, saying that it was in the process of issuing a full refund.

The complaint status is listed as “unresolved” by the bureau.

‘Portfolio of lawsuits’

AgraCity is owned by James Mann and Jason Mann, who are listed as equal shareholders in the company, according to court documents.

The two brothers are directors and officers of AgraCity, with Jason responsible for the day-to-day management of the firm.

James is also the sole registered shareholder of Farmers of North America, although Jason claims to have an ownership stake in that firm.

The two companies are intertwined because AgraCity sells agricultural crop inputs but historically has done so only to farmers who are members of FNA.

The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan says the two brothers and their companies have been embroiled in a “portfolio of lawsuits” against one another dating back to 2017.

“Most parts of this litigation have yet to reach a conclusion, whether through trial or otherwise,” the court stated in a March 5, 2024, decision.

Stopped deliveries news to Mann

In a statement released June 8, James Mann said he learned on June 6 that AgraCity had stopped delivering prepaid product to producers.

“By court order, I have not been in charge of AgraCity since 2017. Since that time I have been concerned about various issues with the management of AgraCity and have been fighting these issues in court,” he said in the statement.

“In April of last year, I brought an application to have a neutral third party manage or inspect AgraCity’s finances. This application was heard on March 13 of this year, and we are still waiting for the court’s decision.

“I want to assure our members that Farmers of North America will do everything in its power to protect and help them.”

Awan Khurrum, a Regina lawyer who has represented AgraCity, said the litigation between the Mann brothers remains before the courts.

He is not aware of any receivership or creditor protection proceedings against AgraCity.

AgraCity has been operating for 20 years and claims to have saved farmers millions of dollars a year on their crop input bills.

Jason is also the president of Genesis Fertilizers, a company that is proposing to build a nitrogen fertilizer production and distribution plant in Belle Plaine, Sask.

—Updated June 9 to include comments from James Mann.

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In a letter shared with media and addressed to Greg Orencsak, deputy minister of Health Canada (the agency that oversees the PMRA), CropLife Canada president and CEO Pierre Petelle called the initiatives “rushed through” and said the agency had “little regard for the negative impact they will have on the competitiveness of the agriculture sector.”

The letter, dated Jan. 29, called for an immediate pause to a number of initiatives; including changes to fees, oversight policies and various other regulatory changes.

“An immediate pause is necessary to assess the detailed impact of these measures on the agriculture industry at a time when it is already facing extreme uncertainty,” Petelle wrote.

In an email to Glacier FarmMedia, Erin O’Hara, CropLife Canada’s vice-president of communications and member services, noted the urgency of the request and likened the call to capital gains tax changes, which have also raised considerable consternation in the agriculture sector.

“While trying to mitigate the risks from this threat, political and business leaders alike agree that Canada must put a greater emphasis on the things within its control to boost productivity and competitiveness at home,” she wrote.

Changes at the PMRA

The federal agency’s review was announced in August 2021, and the federal government said the goal was to improve the agency around four pillars:

• improved transparency,

• increased use of real-world data and independent advice,

• strengthened human health and environmental protection through modernized pesticide business processes and

• a targeted review of the Pest Control Products Act.

The government said they aimed to make it easier for the public to get involved in decision making and increase transparency in their operations.

One step was the creation of the Science Advisory Committee on Pest Control Products in Canada in early 2022, to which CropLife Canada objected.

Speaking to the Manitoba Co-operator at the time, CropLife Canada president and CEO Pierre Petelle worried that politics could override science, as he claimed it had already in the European Union.

“Their [EU] system is completely driven by politics and the science is routinely ignored,” Petelle said. “Again, I am not saying we’re there, but this is a very troubling development.”

The post CropLife Canada calls for halt to Pest Management Regulatory Agency changes, cites tariffs appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Markus Kamieth also said on a global call that BASF would consider strategic options for its coatings business, which mainly caters to the car industry, including a potential joint venture or looking into having a different owner for the unit, according to a recording of the call made available to Reuters.

Both businesses are highly successful earnings and cash flow generators, but “the capital market views it differently sometimes and they are undervalued as part of BASF”, Kamieth added.

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters that BASF did not have any potential buyers for the coatings business lined up. BASF, which is due to hold a capital markets day on Thursday, declined to comment.

Kamieth has continued his predecessor’s push to cut costs in Europe and reduce the group’s reliance on subdued markets there, while building a 10-billion-euro (C$15 billion) chemical complex in southern China to tap into faster growth in Asia.

Kamieth told employees, however, that he was more optimistic about the Ludwigshafen chemical complex in Germany, where BASF is headquartered, than for many years.

The site is competitive “in its core” but about 15-20 per cent of the plants at the complex, which are “rather peripheral”, would have to be monitored for their competitiveness over the next few years.

In December last year, BASF announced plans to turn its agriculture, battery materials and coatings businesses into autonomous units in a bid to boost earnings. Its catalytic converter business had previously been made more independent.

The CEO told employees on Wednesday that the four units would be regarded as “standalone”, as opposed to the remaining “core” businesses that are technically and commercially more closely integrated with each other.

BASF’s Agricultural Solutions unit had about 10 billion euros in sales last year, competing with Bayer, Corteva and China’s Syngenta.

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BASF’s new CEO, Markus Kamieth, will announce a series of overhaul measures at the capital markets day set for Sep. 26-27, including plans for the future of its coatings business, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

While the agricultural chemicals business is to be prepared for a listing, the German firm could also signal its willingness to sell parts of the coatings business or bring in a partner.

BASF declined to comment on the report.

“We will publish information on our strategy next week at our capital markets day,” a company spokesperson told Reuters.

BASF shares rose 3.6 per cent, the top gainer in the DAX, following the report.

According to Bloomberg, BASF could also announce plans for the further development of the battery materials business.

The proceeds from the sale of assets could be used to strengthen the balance sheet, according to the report.

In December last year, BASF announced plans to turn its agriculture, battery materials and coatings businesses into autonomous units in a bid to try to boost earnings.

However, previous CEO Martin Brudermueller said at the time that there was no intention to sell these businesses.

BASF’s Agricultural Solutions unit had about 10 billion euros (C$15.1 billion) in sales last year, competing with Bayer, Corteva and China’s Syngenta.

—Reporting for Reuters by Patricia Weiss

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Keep it Clean is a joint initiative of the Canola Council of Canada, Cereals Canada, Pulse Canada and the Prairie Oat Growers Association. The group releases an annual product advisory with information on potential market risks associated with agrochemical use.

Sethoxydim, a post-emergent herbicide, is one of the products removed, largely because BASF stopped making the product.

Chlorothalonil, a fungicide active ingredient, was the other removal. It was added to the list a few years ago, after the European Union prohibited all agricultural use of the product and dropped the maximum residue limit (MRL) to a default level of 0.01 parts per million.

MRLs are the legally permitted amount of pesticide residue that can remain in or on food and feed products.

“At the time, we didn’t have much real-world data to understand what the potential trade risk was,” said Greg Bartley, Pulse Canada’s director of crop protection and crop quality. “So, it was more of a precautionary approach to make sure that we aren’t causing unnecessary trade concerns.”

After residue testing at the farm level, the organization considered the risk to be virtually nonexistent.

“It shows that even if farmers are using this product according to label directions, it doesn’t cause a trade concern,” said Bartley. “This gives us enough confidence to remove (clorothalonil) from the advisories, which is always good news.”

But the product isn’t out of the woods yet. A proposal to ban all uses of chlorothalonil is being reviewed by Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which started looking into the chemical shortly after the EU ban. Bartley said the PMRA will likely announce its decision this year.

“We’re watching that one closely,” he said, adding that the product is important to pulse growers.

Keep it Clean’s 2024 Product Advisory contained no new products on its list for cereals this year, and it hasn’t made any changes to advisories for other crops since last year’s release.

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Brad Boettger, POGA chair and a farmer from east of Edmonton, said a recent study from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is fear mongering to raise doubts about the safety of oats.

Canadians and other consumers who are worried about oats should consider who funds the EWG and the group’s agenda, he said.

“They are definitely a pro-organic, activist organization. Anything they can do to demonize conventional products…. We hope these (sort) of hit pieces that come out from (organizations) like the Environmental Working Group don’t push consumers into changing their purchasing decisions out of fear.”

On its website, the EWG says it is not funded by organic farmers or the organic food industry. It claims funding comes from charitable foundations and individual donations.

The “hit piece” that Boettger mentioned is an EWG study on oats and chlormequat, a plant growth regulator marketed as Manipulator.

Some Canadian farmers apply chlormequat to oats and other cereal crops to decrease the height of plants and reduce the risk of lodging.

The EWG study was published mid-February in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. It looked at the presence of chlormequat in urine and food.

The scientists collected 96 urine samples from 2017-23, and chlormequat was detected in 77 samples, or 80 percent of cases.

The urine came from adults in Florida, South Carolina and Missouri.

The high rate of positive tests should raise “alarm bells,” the EWG said, because the “chemical is linked to reproductive and developmental problems in animal studies, suggesting the potential for similar harm to humans.”

The EWG also tested oat-based food, which was purchased in the summer of 2022 and May 2023. The researchers tested 25 samples of food made from conventional oats and detected traces of chlormequat 23 times, or 92 percent of samples.

“These findings and chlormequat toxicity data raise concerns about current exposure levels and warrant more expansive toxicity testing, food monitoring and

epidemiological studies to assess health effects of chlormequat exposures in humans,” say the authors of the EWG study.

In its report, the EWG says the source of the chlormequat is likely Canadian farms because American growers aren’t allowed to apply the plant growth regulator to cereal crops.

The EWG study caught Canada’s oat industry off guard.

Oat buyers and companies that market oat food in North America haven’t raised the issue of chlormequat residues, Boettger said.

“As far as we’ve known, it’s never been a concern for the end users (of oats).”

How much chlormequat in oats?

The EWG purchased oat food made from conventional oats in 2022 and 2023.

Testing found residues were well below the Maximum Residue Level for oats:

• A median amount of 114 parts per billion in 2023 and 90 p.p.b. in 2022
• So, 104 p.p.b. for the 25 samples of oat food
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a maximum residue limit (MRL) for chlormequat in oat grains of 40 parts per million. For oat bran, the MRL is 10 parts per million

It’s hard to comprehend parts per billion. One way to think about it is one p.p.b. is equal to one sheet of toilet paper in a roll that stretches from New York to London.

The EWG study detected 104 p.p.b. in oat food. That is 384 times smaller than the maximum residue level of 40,000 p.p.b.

Another way of explaining the difference between 40 p.p.m. and 0.104 p.p.m. is daily consumption of eggs.

Eating one egg per day is not a problem, but eating 384 eggs in a day would be extremely hazardous to your health.

“In my opinion, and POGA’s opinion, is that this is a good news story, if anything,” Boettger said.

“The fact that we’re 350 times lower than the maximum allowable. I would characterize it as kind of making a story where there isn’t one.”

There isn’t official data, but POGA estimates 10 to 20 percent of oat growers in Canada apply Manipulator to the crop.

Boettger has never applied it to his oats.

Some growers use it to prevent lodging.

“It’s more of a concern in the deep, black soils, where they get more rains,” Boettger said.

“The growers that get on the high end of vegetative growth and higher end yields … there is more chance of it lodging.”

It’s possible that the EWG report is connected to a pending EPA decision, in which it may approve chlormequat for use in America, Boettger added.

“It kind of seems like the Environmental Working Group might be trying to persuade public opinion prior to the EPA coming out with a ruling.”

The EWG has its reasons for studying oats and chlormequat, but reports on agricultural chemical residues in food do generate a great deal of attention.

Major news outlets in the U.S., such as the New York Post, Fox Business News and Newsweek, picked up the EWG report and wrote headlines such as, “Pesticide found in oats linked to infertility.”

As well, following the publication of a story on The Western Producer website, worried readers asked if it’s safe to eat oatmeal and oat cereals.

Looking ahead to this growing season, oat growers should talk to their buyers about chlormequat, Boettger said. However, he also emphasized that it is a registered and legal product for use in Canada, so growers can apply it to their oats.

“It’s been approved. It’s gone through rigorous scientific reviews through Health Canada.”

As for consumers, they should feel very confident that oats grown on Canadian farms are safe, he added.

“They can truly go to the grocery store … and (purchase) safe, healthy and nutritious products that we produce right here in Canada by great growers. If they have any concerns, find a local farmer and ask (the grower) how (the) food is produced.”

—Robert Arnason writes for the Western Producer from Manitoba.

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Late last week the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a study on oats and chlormequat, a plant growth regulator marketed as Manipulator.

Farmers apply chlormequat to oats and cereal crops to decrease the height of plants and reduce the risk of lodging.

The EWG study, published Feb. 15 in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, looked at the presence of chlormequat in urine and foods.

The scientists collected 96 urine samples from 2017-23, and chlormequat was detected in 77 samples, or 80 percent of cases.

The urine came from adults in Florida, South Carolina and Missouri.

The high rate of positive tests should raise “alarm bells,” the EWG said in a news release, because the “chemical is linked to reproductive and developmental problems in animal studies, suggesting the potential for similar harm to humans.”

The EWG also tested oat-based foods purchased in May 2023 and the summer of 2022. Researchers tested 25 samples of food made from conventional oats and detected traces of chlormequat 23 times, or 92 percent of samples.

They also looked at food made from organic oats. In those 17 samples, they detected chlormequat three times.

“These findings and chlormequat toxicity data raise concerns about current exposure levels, and warrant more expansive toxicity testing, food monitoring, and epidemiological studies to assess health effects of chlormequat exposures in humans,” say the authors of the EWG study.

Major media outlets in the United States picked up the EWG news release on the study, including CBS News, Forbes, People magazine and USA Today.

“Chemical That May Cause Infertility Found in Cheerios, Quaker Oats … 80% of Americans tested were found to have been exposed to chlormequat,” said an alarming headline from people.com.
General Mills, the maker of Cheerios, provided a statement to USA Today, saying that all of its products “adhere to regulatory requirements” and that “food safety is always a top priority at General Mills.”

Much of the media coverage didn’t mention the amounts of chlormequat detected in the EWG study and how that compares to the maximum residue level for chlormequat in oats.

In conventional oat-foods purchased in 2022 and 2023:

• The EWG found a median amount of 114 parts per billion in 2023 and 90 p.p.b. in 2022, which means 104 p.p.b. for the 25 samples of oat foods.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has an MRL for chlormequat in oats of 40 parts per million. For oat bran, the MRL is 10 parts per million

When converted to parts per million, 104 parts per billion looks much smaller. It is 0.104 parts per million, which is 384 times less than 40 p.p.m.

The amount of chlormequat in the urine samples was also much lower than the safe level of exposure, as defined by the EPA.

The Environmental Working Group acknowledged that reality in the journal article

“Current chlormequat concentrations in urine from this study … suggest that individual sample donors were exposed to chlormequat at levels several orders of magnitude below the reference dose published by the U.S. EPA (0.05 mg/kg bw (body weight)/day) and the acceptable daily intake value published by the European Food Safety Authority (0.04 mg/kg bw/day).”

The amount of chlormequat found in urine and oat foods may be very low, but public perception is reality when it comes to pesticides.

Headlines from the New York Post, Fox Business News and Newsweek, saying “pesticide found in oats linked to infertility,” is a massive public relations problem for the oat industry.

As well, the Environmental Working Group says Canadian farmers are the cause of chlormequat residues in oats.

In 2018, the EPA established an MRL for chlormequat, which allowed Canadian farmers to use the product. Then, the EPA increased the MRL in 2020 to 40 p.p.m.

That aligns with the Canadian MRL for oats, which is also 40 p.p.m. However, U.S. growers are not permitted to use Manipulator on oats or other food crops. Therefore, the source of the chlormequat in oat foods must be Canadian farms, the Environmental Working Group says.

“Environmental Protection Agency regulations allow the chemical to be used on ornamental plants only – not food crops – grown in the U.S. But its use is permitted on imported oats and other foods sold here. Many oats and oat products consumed in the U.S. come from Canada.”

—Robert Arnason writes for the Western Producer from Manitoba.

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