DuPont Pioneer to build soybean research facility in Delaware

DuPont Pioneer announced plans to build a $35 million soybean research facility at its Stine Haskell Research Center in Newark, Delaware. The nearly 134,000-square-foot facility will include two state-of-the-art automated greenhouses and is expected to be completed in 2016, with room for future expansion.
“The new DuPont Pioneer Delaware Soybean Research Facility will advance our research and development pipeline and enhance the value of Pioneer brand soybean varieties for our grower customers by protecting yield and increasing oil and protein content,” said Neal Gutterson, vice president of Agricultural Biotechnology, DuPont Pioneer. “This research is an important part of the DuPont strategic focus on agriculture and nutrition against the backdrop of an increasing world population and demand for more food.”
The DuPont Pioneer Delaware Soybean Research Facility is strategically located near its agricultural biotechnology trait research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. The new facility will be home to experts in advanced genetic discovery to develop and test the newest products and traits in the company’s growing research and development pipeline. The new, automated greenhouses include a soybean plant movement system that will increase research efficiency. Built with sustainability in mind, the greenhouses will feature three 60,000-gallon rain water cisterns to harvest, filter and re-use run-off.
"Delaware is proud of this investment by DuPont in the future of agriculture and that it is occurring in our state,” said Ed Kee, secretary of the Delaware Department of Agriculture. “Delaware farmers have a 200-year history of agricultural progress and innovation and all of us connected with our state's agriculture look forward to the results of DuPont’s commitment to helping feed the world."
“This new facility represents a merger of three key economic entities from Delaware’s past, present and future. Agriculture, our oldest economic strength, will be used in the fields of innovation and biotechnology, which have been developing as a future economic base,” said Alan Levin, director of the Delaware Economic Development Office. “This is all being done by one of our signature companies, DuPont, which has been a leading innovator here for more than two centuries and continues to be one today.”
Pioneer began soybean operations in 1973 and is a world leader in agricultural biotechnology.  The new Stine Haskell facility will support the business’s expanded suite of insect resistant, herbicide tolerant and increased output trait soybean products.  This year, U.S. growers planted more than 84 million acres of soybeans, an 11 percent increase from the 76.5 million acres planted in 2013.