Ability to Identify Counterfeits Guards Integrity of Spinosyn Insecticides

Farming is a risky business with ever-changing variables like weather and markets, so product quality is something that should not be a gamble for farmers. Corteva Agriscience™ continues advancing its ability to guard the integrity of its industry-leading spinosad products which help farmers around the world protect high-value crops. Insecticides containing spinosad are a combination of natural spinosyns produced by a proprietary bacterial strain in a fermentation process.

The company, which has more than 20 years of experience in spinosad production, has developed and continues to refine highly sensitive and specific molecular forensic technology to actively ensure product integrity. Counterfeit and illegal products - including those that violate intellectual property rights (IPR) - place the entire value chain at risk with potential harm to crops, food, animal feed and the environment.

Similar to how a fingerprint identifies a person, Corteva Agrisciences proprietary forensic technology enables its scientists to quickly determine a spinosyn samples "fingerprint," essentially the origin of the production strain used in the fermentation process. These methods help the company clearly identify and take appropriate action if the sample is counterfeit. This scientific expertise helps protect customers by ensuring the products they are using are of the highest quality and meet performance expectations.

"Our ability to develop and refine highly accurate and reliable counterfeit detection systems is important to helping farmers improve their productivity in food production," says Santosh Mangalam, insecticide portfolio leader, Corteva Agriscience. "Corteva Agrisciences expertise translates into value for our customers and reinforces their confidence in our products."

This technology builds upon the strict control processes the company has in place to uphold consistent quality. This type of quality is essential as spinosyn is approved for veterinary and pharmaceutical uses along with agricultural uses, and has been approved by the World Health Organization and the Food and Food and Agriculture Organization (United Nations).

About Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont
Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), is intended to become an independent, publicly traded company when the previously announced spinoff is complete by June 2019. The division combines the strengths of DuPont Pioneer, DuPont Crop Protection and Dow AgroSciences. Corteva Agriscience™ provides growers around the world with the most complete portfolio in the industry — including some of the most recognized brands in agriculture: Pioneer®, Encirca®, the newly launched Brevant™ Seeds, as well as award-winning Crop Protection products — while bringing new products to market through our solid pipeline of active chemistry and technologies. More information can be found at http://www.corteva.com.

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