On “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg,” James Collins, Chief Operating Officer of the Agriculture Division of DowDupont, outlines the ways agriculture businesses can better support farmers as new challenges arise. “Our job is to help farmers be more profitable, finding ways for them to use less inputs and be more efficient and finding ways for them to produce more off of the same set of inputs—and be more productive. We really put the grower, the farmer, at the undisputed center of everything we do,” says Collins.
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The Agriculture Division of DowDupont, recently named Corteva Agriscience, will spin off into a separate company in 2019; Collins, Chief Executive Officer-Elect for Corteva Agriscience, will lead the global agriculture company as it locates solutions to improving on-farm production. Corteva will “bring new tools, better tools, and safer, healthier, and more sustainable options to help these farmers do what they do every day,” says Collins. “It all starts with the farmer. At the end of the day, all solutions have to start there[…] When you’re out there standing with a grower, who has lost everything that they have invested money in for the first half of the year for particular pest or a disease or the lack of grain, you realize just how fragile and how delicate everything is around producing food every year.”
“And then we added a new twist with Corteva,” says Collins. “I believe we have ignored another large constituent here as an industry over the years—and that’s the consumer.” While Corteva will provide growers around the world with crop protection and seed products, it will also work to engage and educate consumers. “We’re going to do [things] better and differently. It all starts with culture. This customer-centric performance-based, very inclusive culture—increasing our accountability, putting our core values out there, and making sure folks know what kind of company Corteva is going to be,” says Collins.
Working with both farmers and consumers, says Collins, will help Corteva achieve its goals to ensure that the latest technologies are used to grow better food, sustain the land, and conserve resources. “We’re working together to build a responsible food system, one that can sustain and nourish, but also enrich lives and protect the planet.”
