Two months after buying the Italian durum wheat seed company, Societa Produttori Sementi, Syngenta announced its purchase of Lantmannen’s German and Polish winter wheat and winter rapeseed businesses. Germany is Europe’s biggest rapeseed producer and second biggest winter wheat producer behind France. Syngenta states that the purchase would complement its portfolio and would support the company’s global development of non-GM cereal seeds. Lantmannen’s, a Swedish co-operative owned by 32,000 Swedish farmers, sold its Canadian and UK seed operations eight years ago and experienced a 90% decline in operating profits for 2013 followed by further losses in the first four months of 2014. Lantmannen’s will continue breeding winter and spring wheat, spring barley, oats, triticale, spring oilseed rape, forage crops, willow, and potatoes in Sweden and Holland, and the deal with Syngenta will give the company the rights to distribute Syngenta winter wheat and rapeseed seeds on the Swedish market.
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