Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, is the world’s leading developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics to farmers worldwide. We seek to increase customer productivity, profitability, and to develop sustainable agricultural systems. Innovative and customer-focused, Pioneer is a leader in the agriculture industry, creating the right product on the right acre for farmers everywhere.

TIPPING POINT FOR COMPETITION

Choice and innovation for farmers result from open competition where products compete on the merits. Competition spurs companies to do their best — accelerating the pace of innovation. And consumers pay more when a single company controls that access to innovation.

Today, we face a critical time for competition in the seed market. According to its own numbers, Monsanto controls 98 percent and 79 percent of the soybean and corn trait markets, respectively. Monsanto is using anticompetitive tactics to extend this monopoly — leaving the ag biotech market firmly in the grip of a single supplier, acting as a bottleneck to competition and choice.

PATENT EXPIRATION AND A CHANCE TO COMPETE

The stakes are high: The patents Monsanto claims for Roundup Ready® expire no later than 2014. The patent expiration opens up, for the first time, the possibility of innovative new products from competitors and independent seed companies and has precedent-setting implications for the agriculture industry as a whole.

MONSANTO’S ANTICOMPETITIVE TACTICS

Monsanto is deterring competition by:

CREATING THE BEST SEED: CHOICE AND INNOVATION

Farmers know that the most productive seed combines the best available technologies for local growing conditions, and that is what Pioneer seeks to offer through innovative products, such as offering seed companies the ability to include our Optimum^® GAT^® trait along with Roundup Ready^® in the same seed.

®Roundup Ready is a registered trademark used under license from Monsanto Company.