Leduc, a fourth-generation producer who grows more than 10,000 acres of wheat, durum, mustard, canola, peas and lentils in an area dominated by grazing cattle, thinks that the long-awaited technological improvement, a plant that produces canola-like oil, could help him eke out a few more dollars per acre.

“All I’m trying to do is improve the bottom line of our farm,” he said.

WHY IT MATTERS: Mustard growers worry BASF’s InVigor Gold hybrid will destroy Canada’s condiment mustard industry. BASF says the oilseed could be grown safely in arid regions where canola routinely fails.

But Trent Dewar, who farms elsewhere in the Canadian semi-desert known as Palliser’s Triangle, fears the new GMO mustard plant will ruin the pure mustard he grows for the premium Dijon bottlers in France, the United States and Japan, as well as other specialty mustards. The industry is worth about $150 million (C$209 million) in exports annually — only a fraction of the $8.9 billion (C$12.4 billion) canola exports market. But in a geography where canola fails more often than it flourishes, mustard has been the lifeblood of many farms since growers started planting it 90 years ago.

“Everybody I’ve talked to personally is quite shell-shocked that this would even be considered,” he said.

Mustard is a tiny crop in Canada, with usually less than 200,000 metric tons of mustard produced by a few hundred farmers. Mustard production soars and sags with volatile world prices and local weather, like other specialty crops. Canadian canola growers, by contrast, usually plant more than 20 million acres of their crop, which produces upwards of 19 million metric tons. That makes canola Canada’s biggest source of crop income by far.

That’s why so many are excited about the drought-resistant GMO mustard plant. Global agricultural giant BASF hopes to win approval from Canadian and U.S. agencies for commercialization as soon as next year in the U.S. and a couple of years later in Canada.

It’s not without risk, however. The GMO plant looks nearly identical to a traditional mustard plant. Neighboring fields could be contaminated with seeds and pollen carried on the wind or by bees. Both traditional brown and oriental mustards and the new mustard canola are brassica junceas, so they can breed, with pollen from one type fertilizing the other.

“It has the potential of wrecking a whole industry,” said farmer Norm Hall, the chair of SaskMustard, which represents Saskatchewan’s mustard growers. The group is lobbying the government in Ottawa to keep the crop out of Canada.

Brent Collins, head of BASF’s seeds and traits division in Canada, said the crop was an “innovation” that would “truly unlock new canola acres, helping meet market demand.”

The French connection

France, which sources about half its mustard supplies from Canada, has a strict non-GMO standard. Other large global buyers are similarly stringent. Many Canadian mustard growers and sellers fear the door could slam shut if traces of the hybrid mustard-canola were detected.

“They look at it like a razor blade that shows up in a bag of rice,” said Peter Gorski of Broadgrain, a company that sells Canadian specialty crops like mustard to buyers around the world.

Foreign buyers have not said how they will respond if GMO traces appear. Most contracts contain a commitment to be non-GMO, and two contracts shared with Reuters contained that specification. A French law limits the presence of GMOs in the food supply, but the threshold of acceptable traces is mostly left to the buyer.

Christophe Planes, sales and marketing director for French mustard processor Reine de Dijon, said the GMO plant could spell trouble for Canadian exports.

About half of the company’s seeds are sourced from Canada, he said, adding: “We’re clearly committed to a non-GMO policy.”

“Since France is quite strict regarding GMOs we systematically check all our supplies to ensure that there are no traces, or very few traces,” Planes said.

Since Canada’s crippling drought of 2021, which hampered mustard production and triggered panic in French shoppers finding grocery store shelves bare of the condiment, France has boosted its own domestic supplies. There are other sources for mustard seed, such as Argentina, Germany and Ukraine, but Canadian mustard is both high quality and cheap, Planes said. Switching could affect quality and raise prices.

A flax grower’s nightmare, revisited

Canadian mustard growers are haunted by a historical precedent: tainted flax. Canada lost a well-paying and steady European market for flax when traces of a GMO variety called Triffid were found in European food products in 2009. Exports plunged and never recovered.

Mustard is an ancient crop, its seeds found in stone-age settlements of the Near East, in ancient Sumerian texts, and even in the tomb of Egypt’s Pharaoh Tutankhamun. In the Bible, Jesus of Nazareth told a parable about the mustard seed.

By contrast, the mustard-canola hybrid is a 21st-century scientific marvel, employing decades of traditional plant breeding and later GMO methods to produce a mustard plant that produces a version of canola oil, and that survives a herbicide controlling the plague of tumbleweeds in western North America. Many farmers in the mustard-growing region have been eagerly awaiting this new crop since the 1990s, but it has been a tortuous scientific development process. Canola is a cool-weather crop that thrives in northern latitudes like Canada, but climate change’s bouts of extreme heat and drought are expected to make it more challenging to grow.

Some of the original research into using a mustard plant to produce canola-like seed was done by scientists working for a farmers’ cooperative in the 1990s, as well as by university researchers. Now global agriculture giant BASF has brought what it calls InVigor Gold to the cusp of commercialization.

Traditional clashes with bold and new

From discussions with mustard and canola industry key players, it is clear that the two camps have sharply different assessments of whether the GMO mustard can flourish alongside traditional mustard.

“We know we can’t co-exist,” said Rick Mitzel, executive director of Sask Mustard.

BASF, however, thinks two million acres of its mustard-canola could be grown in arid areas of Canada and the U.S., with safeguards against pollen flow and seed spread between mustard and canola fields.

“We understand the areas that mustard growers are concerned about and it’s our responsibility to be able to explain what exactly we’re doing to be able to appease some of these concerns,” said Collins.

The two sides have sporadically met in recent years, but as the widespread release of the crop approaches, mustard growers and the mustard industry have grown desperate.

At an industry meeting this winter, mustard growers and merchants called for their representatives to take legal and political action to block the introduction of InVigor Gold. But Hall told them it would be an “uphill battle” because BASF is following the usual crop development protocols, and market impact is not considered during the Canadian crop approval processes.

Kacy Gehring of Mountain States Oilseeds, a U.S. mustard merchant in American Falls, Idaho, said the concern about GMO contamination destroying markets could trigger farmers to just stop growing mustard. That wouldn’t just be a problem for companies like hers, but also bad for world culinary culture, she said.

Farmer Leduc understands the worries of his mustard-growing neighbors, but doesn’t apologize for wanting to get InVigor Gold into his fields as soon as possible. Farming in an arid region isn’t easy, but it’s where his great-grandfather settled. He needs every survival tool he can get.

“I wish I was in a wetter part of the province,” he said.

— Additional reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide and Gus Trompiz in France.

The post The Canadian GMO mustard wars: Dijon vs canola appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“This significant investment strengthens our ability to bring forward the next generation of high-performing hybrids, supporting yield gains, agronomic resilience and long-term success for Canadian farmers,” Leta LaRush, vice-president of BASF Agricultural Solutions Canada, said today in a news release.

BASF announced the expansion of the Canola Breeding Centre of Innovation in Saskatoon. Construction will begin this spring with completion expected by the end of 2027.

WHY IT MATTERS: With climate change driving weather unpredictability, canola producers need varieties that survive better and yield more.

The expansion will add advanced infrastructure, including precision-controlled growth systems and a research-grade glasshouse, the company said in the news release. These will increase breeding capacity and shorten innovation cycles, it added.

“These enhancements are critical to implementing genomic selection at scale, enabling faster, more precise breeding decisions and accelerating genetic gain across all InVigor programs,” BASF said.

The new glasshouse – a facility that enables researchers to develop experimental climates — is designed to support future hybrid breeding programs.

The centre will focus on the development of new InVigor hybrid canola varieties to better withstand changing environmental pressures and accommodate growing global demand.

Saskatchewan agriculture minister David Marit said the announcement was great news.

“It just shows the research that’s happening here and the confidence of a company like BASF to invest here. They see opportunities around the research and looking at genetics,” Marit told Glacier FarmMedia.

“You look at where the canola industry is going just in the least 15 years with new varieties, new higher oil contents, straight cut varieties, higher drought tolerant varieties — it just adds to what’s going on here in the province.”

-With files from Karen Briere

The post BASF announces $27M Saskatoon canola breeding facility expansion appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“It was not fun,” said the farmer from Austin, Man. “The last half, I thought we’d never finish because it was so terrible.”

Last year, Crammond also saw the disease, but not to the same degree.

“It’s hard to describe why,” he said. “It’s not present in every field, or every year, or in every cultivar.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Without chemical control options and with only early days on genetic tools, verticillium has become a crop disease of increasing concern to canola growers in Manitoba and across the Prairies.

Seed genetics will certain play some role, looking at the natural variation between varieties. Seed companies are exploiting this variation, bringing cultivars to market with known enhanced tolerance.

The new cultivar P1540L from Pioneer Hi-Bred has what Corteva calls moderate verticillium stripe tolerance. The company has been screening developmental canola lines for verticillium stripe tolerance for five years.

“We knew after the first year of screening that our germplasm had natural variation,” said Chad Koscielny, North American canola breeding lead for Corteva.

Verticillium stripe results from the fungal pathogen Verticillium longisporum. It’s been around for decades in Europe. Manitoba was the unfortunate front line for the disease, reporting the Prairies’ first case back in 2014.

The disease enters through the roots and blocks nutrient flow within the plant, leading to early dry down and yield loss.

Koscielny takes inspiration from the European experience.

“Verticillium also reared up quickly in European rapeseed,” he said. “Public researchers identified genes that seemed to increase susceptibility to verticillium, and seed companies were able shift towards more tolerant commercial germplasm.”

Verticillium losses in Europe have been minimized, Koscielny said, by removing susceptible germplasm.

BASF has a new InVigor cultivar, L355PC, with improved verticillium stripe tolerance. The company has three verticillium stripe nurseries across the Prairies and has indoor screening. Through these methods, L355PC showed enhanced verticillium stripe tolerance compared to other BASF cultivars, said Clint Jurke, regional technical services manager for the company.

“This is a quantitative type of resistance, which will reduce disease to a degree but will not provide immunity,” he said.

The other type of resistance – qualitative – often comes from single highly effective resistance genes.

Manitoba research identifies possible anti-verticillium trait

High suberin levels — which is a natural biopolymer produced by the plant — could be one pathway to quantitative resistance, according to local research.

Plants use suberin to build cell walls, especially in roots. Because verticillium stripe infects canola through the roots, roots with thicker, more suberin-rich, cell walls could mean lower infection levels.

University of Manitoba doctoral student Shruti Kashyap made the suberin discovery while studying early-season moisture as it relates to verticillium stripe severity.

Kashyap had run a two-factor study comparing verticillium stripe infection of canola plants growing in soil with moisture at field capacity (ideal) and soil with moisture at 30 per cent of field capacity (to mimic a drought), using disease-susceptible cultivar Westar in growth chambers. She inoculated the plants with Verticillium longisporum pathogen at the two-leaf stage, and started the moisture treatments two days after inoculation.

After nine days, verticillium infection for plants growing in drought-like conditions reached a severity index of 3.4 to four. (At a rating of nine, the plant is dead). Plants growing in high-moisture conditions had a verticillium severity index of 7.

The experiment confirmed that verticillium stripe is worse when canola plants start out with more moisture. Previous research and field observations suggested that verticillium stripe prefers a “wet spring and dry summer” to have a greater impact on canola yield.

Then came the new discovery.

Kashyap worked with her advisors Claudio Stasolla and Harmeet Chawla, using fluorescent microscopy to visualize verticillium in root cells. This technique, which gives verticillium hyphae one colour and root cells another colour.

Roots with adequate moisture clearly showed more fungal hyphae in the roots, but there was also something else interesting: root cell walls were thicker in the drought-stressed plants.

Because verticillium infects through the cell walls, Kashyap wondered: were these thicker cell walls creating a physical barrier to infection?

Rubber to the road

To test this theory, Kashyap and her co-supervisors acquired arabidopsis plants (thale cress) that had genetic mutations responsible for synthesizing suberin. Some of those plants have mutations to produce a lot of suberin, some have mutations to produce very little.

Arabadopsis is like the lab rat of plants, used around the world for research. International scientific consortiums have arabidopsis seed available with mutations for almost any gene or trait. Labs order seed for the mutation they want, and get small seed lots delivered.

Kashyap will now expose her arabidopsis mutants – both suberin-rich and suberin-poor – to Verticillium longisporum, measure the infection levels and see if it validates what they saw with Westar.

From there, the researchers can check canola lines known to be susceptible or resistant to verticillium stripe to see if the resistant genotypes have thicker root cell walls.

If the suberin connection survives these experiments, the researchers could then find the genetic pathway that imparts high suberin levels and thick root cell walls, and select for that trait.

Kudos for public research

Jurke said public research is essential to help identify the full integrated management package for verticillium stripe management, including research on how the disease works. That can include how long spores persist and the corresponding crop rotation recommendation. Public research was also key in showing that higher verticillium tolerance lurked in the background of canola genetics. “We can certainly utilize the suberin work if it holds up to scrutiny,” Jurke said.

Another need, Jurke adds, is a verticillium stripe rating system for resistance, similar to what the canola seed industry has for other diseases. Common and public parameters would provide a fair comparison of commercial cultivars.

Meanwhile, canola growers can visit plots this summer to compare current cultivar tolerances. For P1540L trial sites, reach out to Pioneer Hi-Bred seed reps. For L355PC, ask BASF reps for demonstration strip trials that include that cultivar. Check what other seed companies have in the pipeline.

The post Is canola on the path to withstand verticillium? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

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

The post BASF cuts 2025 outlook as tariffs weigh on global economy appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The German industrial chemicals giant has said that its Agricultural Solutions unit should be ready by 2027 for an initial public offering that could see BASF sell a minority stake in the maker of pesticides and seeds.

Hybrid wheat

“We aim to further increase our share of revenue from seeds. We are at close to 22 per cent and we want to move more towards 25 per cent,” Livio Tedeschi, the division’s president, told Reuters.

Among new products underpinning that ambition, BASF is working on hybrid wheat, an approach that has for years been pursued by the industry to boost wheat yields, and new soy variants that resist pests such as soil roundworms.

Tedeschi said this was a high strategic priority and it could be supported by collaboration deals and small acquisitions.

Increasing Asia market share

A particular geographic focus across products including crop chemicals and digital services was Asia, he added.

“When measured by market share, we are under-represented in Asia. We want to increase our market share,” said Tedeschi.

BASF’s agriculture business, among the four largest industry players alongside Syngenta, Bayer and Corteva, posted global 2024 sales of 9.8 billion euros (C$15.4 billion), with Asia accounting for 11.6 per cent of that.

From North America, Europe and South America it derived 39.8 per cent, 24.6 per cent and 24 per cent of sales, respectively.

Parent BASF last week said it was facing high levels of uncertainty from U.S. tariffs and other countries’ reactions to them, but reaffirmed its earnings guidance for lack of clearer economic indicators.

Tedeschi added that BASF’s decision to separate the agriculture unit from the rest of the business gave the unit more autonomy and would allow it to sustain research and development spending at nine to 10 per cent of sales.

The post BASF’s agriculture arm eyes seeds and Asia as it prepares for listing appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The threat of trade duties was prompting customers to order more cautiously overall, finance chief Dirk Elvermann said in an analyst call. “We are maintaining our outlook because the assumptions that we have taken can’t be replaced by better assumptions,” he added.

BASF’s shares fell two per cent to a one-week low at after the company also reported that adjusted EBITDA slipped 3.2 per cent in the first quarter to 2.63 billion euros (C$4.11 billion), slightly below market expectations.

Net income in the period from January to March dropped 41 per cent to 808 million euros. The firm attributed this in part to a disposal loss, which it previously put at around 300 million euros, from selling a stake in a wind farm project due to lower energy needs in Europe.

The group reiterated it was targeting 2025 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and adjusted for one-off items of between 8 billion euros and 8.4 billion euros, up from 7.9 billion euros last year.

Among positive developments, Elvermann said demand for agricultural products was perking up, there was an improved business sentiment in China and lower oil prices were providing cost relief.

BASF, which is holding its annual investor meeting on Friday, said in March it would sell its 49 per cent stake in two planned North Sea wind farms back to the original owner Vattenfall while retaining the Swedish utility as a renewable power supplier.

— Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss

The post BASF confirms earnings outlook but warns of high uncertainty from trade duties appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

LDC has partly shifted its focus towards the consumer end of the food chain to become less reliant on commodity trading. It launched its own juice brand and established a pulses unit to support expansion into plant-based protein products.

The deal with BASF includes a production site and an R&D centre in Germany and three application labs outside of Germany, LDC said.

BASF said separately that the food and health performance ingredients business had limited synergies into the group and was no longer a strategic focus area for it.

The companies did not give financial details of the agreement.

— Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide

The post Louis Dreyfus to buy BASF’s food and health performance ingredients business appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Chief Executive Bill Anderson has started cutting jobs, speeding up decision-making and slashing red tape in a bid to turn around the embattled industrial group, while putting plans to break up its diversified businesses on hold.

Shares in Bayer were down 11.6 per cent to 21.57 euros (C$31.89) at 10:04 GMT, their lowest level in 20 years following its update.

“We’re in the midst of a big agriculture downturn. And that’s very frustrating for people … We understand the investor sentiment, but we remain very optimistic that we’ve got a strong future,” Anderson said in the statement.

He also pointed to strong launches for Bayer’s new drugs Nubeqa for prostate cancer and Kerendia for kidney disease.

However, Markus Manns, a portfolio manager at Bayer shareholder Union Investment in Germany, criticised the CEO for not having publishing medium-term financial targets, which need to be addressed to win back trust.

“Bayer’s transformation needs to be urgently accelerated and management needs to finally communicate a sustainable growth strategy with specific mid-term targets for sales, earnings and debt reduction,” said Manns.

Chief Financial Officer Wolfgang Nickl said in Bayer’s quarterly earnings statement it expected “a muted outlook on top and bottom line next year with likely declining earnings”.

Based on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), and adjusted for special items, the 2025 forecast would mean a third consecutive annual decline, after the group on Tuesday also lowered its projection for 2024.

Bayer said that the earnings measure, when adjusted for currency impacts, would likely be between 10.4 billion euros (C$ 15.4 billion) and 10.7 billion euros (C$15.8 billion), down from a previous 10.7-11.3 billion euro forecast and last year’s 11.7 billion (C$17.3 billion).

Its July-to-September EBITDA, adjusted for one-offs, fell almost 26 per cent to 1.25 billion euros (C$1.85 billion), missing the average analyst estimate of 1.31 billion euros posted on Bayer’s website, with Bayer citing weak Latin American agricultural markets.

Regulation

Bayer’s $63 billion (C$87.9 billion) purchase in 2018 of seeds and pesticides maker Monsanto under Anderson’s predecessor was a long-term bet on robust growth in farming supplies which has so far misfired.

Debt and costly U.S. product liability litigation over disputed claims that Monsanto weedkiller Roundup causes cancer are further burdens which Anderson is struggling to shake off.

Bayer shares have lost close to 80 per cent since the Monsanto deal was closed in 2018 and about 70 per cent since it was agreed in 2016.

U.S. agrichemicals competitor Corteva and the agriculture unit of Germany’s BASF have also been hit by lower prices as weak produce prices weighed on demand.

Bayer’s shares trade at 4.6 times forward earnings over the next 12 months, well below BASF at 12 and 18.8 for Corteva. The ratio is widely used to gauge the relative value of stocks.

Bayer said its business is set to suffer more because U.S. approval for new soy seeds to be used with weedkiller dicamba will not be in time for the 2025 sowing season and EU regulators will pull insecticide Movento from the market under the bloc’s environmental agenda known as the Green Deal.

In addition, cost-conscious U.S. farmers are turning to cheap generic copies of Bayer’s pesticides, it said.

Bayer said that special charges of 4.1 billion euros (C$6.06 billion), mainly from write-downs on intangible assets in its Crop Science division, resulted in a quarterly net loss of 4.18 billion euros (C$6.18 billion), compared with a 4.57 billion (C$6.76 billion) euro loss a year earlier.

It confirmed its previous currency-adjusted guidance for 2024 sales and earnings per share before certain items.

The post Bayer’s shares sink to 20-year low on 2025 earnings fall forecast appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

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.

The post BASF targets partial listing of agriculture division appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

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

The post BASF to prepare agricultural business for IPO, reports Bloomberg appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.