Corteva Exits Dicamba Market Even Further

Corteva Agriscience had already decided to stop playing in the dicamba space in the present. Now, the company has decided against taking part in the future, too.

In mid-April, Corteva announced that it was voluntarily ending its efforts to receive EPA registration for a new dicamba formulation containing a unique choline salt different than any currently on the market. This unnamed product would have been the company’s attempt to address some of the off-target application complaints that have dogged dicamba since its widespread agricultural use began back in 2017.

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For Corteva, this marked the second time during 2021 that the company has decided to ditch dicamba. Back in February, Corteva announced that it was discontinuing its existing dicamba brand, FeXapan, rather than re-register it under the EPA new dicamba guidelines issued back in October.

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Instead of dicamba, the company has decided to focus the majority of its market attention going forward on its Enlist Cropping System, which uses 2,4-D as the herbicide of choice. “We see a strong demand and broad adoption of Enlist technology for seed and Enlist herbicide crop protection solutions,” said Corteva in a February 2021 press release announcing FeXapan’s end. “This decision allows Corteva to focus on customer and application training, sales, and distribution resources on our leading Enlist weed control system.”

With Corteva' exit from dicamba, how do you feel about the product's future?

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With one of the largest crop protection product manufacturers now abandoning new development in dicamba, the future for this herbicide has been clouded a bit further. In fact, this mirrors what ag retailers told CropLife magazine back in December 2020, during the annual CropLife 100 report.

According to data collected from the 2020 CropLife 100 survey, 99% of respondents didn’t see much growth opportunity for dicamba application work moving forward. Thirty-seven percent of CropLife 100 ag retailers believed that dicamba applications among their grower-customers will continue in 2021 “but has peaked.”

However, the vast majority, 62%, foresaw no growth potential for dicamba applications in future. Indeed, this group of ag retailers believed sales/usage will decrease. Only 1% of CropLife 100 respondents believed dicamba application will grow this season.

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