Whenever I’m asked what is at the heart of Limagrain Field Seeds, I am incredibly proud to be able to give one clear answer: we are farmer-owned and farmer-led.
Limagrain was formed as a farmers’ cooperative in 1965 and today we are owned by nearly 1,500 farmers in central France. Being owned and run by farmers is key to who we are.
Over more than 50 years, the Limagrain group has grown to become the fourth largest seed company in the world with a presence on six continents and sales to farmers in close to 80 countries.
We haven’t grown to the size we are today because we have an ambition to be the largest seed company in the world. Our ambition for Limagrain Field Seeds is to be the leading pure field seed specialist through multi-crop genetics and to be close allies of farmers of all sizes wherever they are located globally. However, our size does allow us to be competitive and to have the resources we need to invest in research that delivers high performance seeds and services to farmers around the world — delivering local solutions thanks to Global resources = LG
Our LG brand is a leading global seed brand, but it is also our identity. It has become a symbol for multi-crop products distributed across a wide geographic space. The brand includes seeds that are genuinely global: what we call our strategic crops. Corn, wheat, sunflower and winter rape fall into this category. Depending on where farmers are in the world, we also have regionally adapted barley, soybean, millet, rice and pulse seeds.
Our strategy is to be genuinely multi-crop. While some seed companies are specialists in one or two crops, we offer 10 crop species in Europe and always try to offer four or five in any given geography. That’s because farmers depend on multiple crops in their rotations and we want to help farmers optimize those rotations.
At Limagrain, we have a strong commitment to using scientific technology to improve and adapt plant varieties for maximum regional yields. To meet this commitment, we have 84 research sites globally and invest roughly 15 to 16 percent of our income directly back into technology-driven research. R&D investment is our biggest single budget item.
Our research takes into account our goal of reaching farmers globally, large or small. We estimate that in Africa we reach about 25 million farmers, some of whom are very small, but who have the same needs as the huge ones. For us, no farm is too large or too small. Whether you’ve got half an acre in West Africa or half a million acres in South America, you are dealing with the same fundamentals, just on a different scale. You need adequate rain at the right time, and you need warm sun and healthy soil. As importantly, you need top performing high quality and reliable seeds: that’s what we deliver.
Farmers make long-term decisions because they are always thinking of how the choices they make today will impact the next generation and the one after that. The farmers who own and run Limagrain are no different. Every decision we make is done with long-term vision and the stability of Local and Global farmers in mind.
