2018
A new brand, DEFENDA, has entered the domestic crop protection market and immediately established itself as a producer of premium, high-quality generic products. It brings together the line of 46 products that UkrAgroProtect (part of LNZ Group) offered its customers. SuperAgronom.com decided to ask the company's director Serhii Borysov about the new brand and the prospects for generic crop protection products on the domestic market.
SuperAgronom.com: Serhii Oleksiiovych, tell us why UkrAgroProtect's crop protection products were given the new name DEFENDA?
Serhii Borysov: We decided that the time had come to enter the domestic crop protection market in full. We already have a large number of customers, we work actively with them, we keep expanding our connections and growing our product line. So it is time to bring our achievements to the wider public. We developed the name DEFENDA for our products. The name comes from the English word for protection, which is the foundation of our business.
SuperAgronom.com: Which enterprises use generic products today?
Serhii Borysov: Our customers include large holdings, medium-sized farms and small farmers. We can offer solutions for areas of any size. That is why we have no average customer profile: every customer is special and each requires an individual approach. The only thing our customers have in common is the desire to optimize crop protection costs while still getting a good result. And that is exactly what we offer today.
SuperAgronom.com: We know that as recently as 2 years ago companies concealed the fact that they used generics. How does the market perceive you?
Serhii Borysov: We firmly believe that you have to be honest with yourself and with your customers. If we are generics, we say so openly. Yes, we are generics, but premium-class generics. We are professionals and all-round soldiers in the field. In a single year our specialists gather as much information on product use in different regions as an agronomist on an individual farm would need about 10 years to collect. We have our own trial plots where we test all new products. Only after trials on small and then large plots do these products undergo testing in our company's commercial crops. And only when we see the desired result in our own fields do we recommend a product to farmers. We do not simply copy solutions, we create our own and improve them.
Our company holds that pesticide use must be professional and responsible, including from the standpoint of environmental protection. That is partly why we do not plan our own production in Ukraine, since such production is a rather serious drawback for the environment.
SuperAgronom.com: You are entering a market where other generic producers are already active. What sets you apart from them?
Serhii Borysov: Over the last 2 years we have seen a trend where a farmer sometimes earns even less profit per hectare than the landlord, as land rents are rising, production costs are rising, and prices for agricultural products cannot be called very high. Profit averages around $200 per hectare, so to stay in the black a farmer needs to cut costs. And at the same time not skimp on crop quality or on yield itself. We make it possible both to save and to get a good harvest. This has been proven over years both on the 70 thousand ha of the LNZ Group holding and in our partners' fields.
SuperAgronom.com: But most crop protection producers promise good harvests and cost optimization…
Serhii Borysov: You are right, which is why DEFENDA also means the high professionalism of our staff and the comprehensive agronomic support we provide to farmers. We work with agricultural producers directly, without any intermediaries. So we always know the needs, the problems and the hopes of farmers. UkrAgroProtect was one of the first companies on the domestic market to start providing agronomic support for its products. This support has now improved and expanded considerably: we offer not only consultations but also the development of a complete crop protection and cultivation program depending on the region and on the specific features and needs of the farm.
In fact, all our products are created in response to farmers' requests. They face a problem, we analyze it and offer a solution. Precisely because we work directly with the farmer, we know all of his «headaches» and can react quickly and offer a «cure».
As for quality, we cooperate only with proven plants that have passed rigorous competitive testing and can offer truly high-quality purification. The key thing about pesticides is not even efficacy but consistency of performance. Our customer must be confident that year after year he will receive the same product with the same efficacy, the same quality and the same physicochemical properties. We do not allow any «insufficient purification», «bad batch» or anything of the kind.
SuperAgronom.com: Given environmental protection and the fact that farmers have begun paying attention to biological protection, do you plan to support this trend as well?
Serhii Borysov: It is not just in our plans. We are already working on ideas for biological protection and are also creating combined insecticides containing both a chemical and a biological component. Such products will be safe for bees, since the problem of bee deaths becomes acute every year during insecticide treatments of crops. Next year we will already present new crop protection products to farmers. And that is only part of what we are working on today. We have a big goal and we are moving purposefully towards it.
SuperAgronom.com: What exactly is that goal?
Serhii Borysov: To usher in an era of professional, responsible, advanced and profitable agriculture. Ukraine is rich in land, so it is the land we must work, and work it in a way that preserves and multiplies this wealth.
SuperAgronom.com: We wish you success and thank you for an interesting conversation!
