American Pioneer opens research station in Stara Pazova

American Pioneer Hi Bred has opened today a research station for testing new sunflower hybrids at Stara Pazova-based Napredak which operates within Delta agrar.

A total of EUR 400.000 has been poured in the center which should provide new hybrids adapted to climate terms in Serbia. It will hire three experts from Serbia.

The head of Pioneer in Serbia, Sinisa Djuic, said that the company has been operating in Serbia since 1996 and that it has 15 employees and 36 people working in the agronomic service.

- So far, Pioneer worked on 45 maize hybrids and more than 10 sunflower hybrids and it dealt with rape seed hybrids and microbiological preparation of silage – Djuric outlined.

As he added, during the past couple of years, Pioneer in Serbia has been conducting more than 550 experiments per year. More than 25.000 hectares of maize has been planted for experiments and they are carried out at the entire Serbian territory.

According to Djuric, as of 2002, Pioneer and Delta agrar organized seed production on 23.000 hectares and more than 70.000 tons of seed maize was produced and more than half was exported to Russia, EU and Ukraine.

Pioneer’s seed stake in partnership with Delta agrar at the hybrid maize totals 28%, sunflower 11%, and rape seed with 50%.

The Head of Pioneer for east and central Europe, Paolo Barbieri, pointed out that investing in research station is a sign of trust in agriculture which, as he estimated, has huge potential.

President of Delta Holding, Miroslav Miskovic, said that agriculture of Serbia and entire Serbia should use world results in these fields which Delta has already been doing.

- In the future, Delta will transfer to Serbia all Pioneer’s successes so that higher yield could be generated and larger import enabled – he said.