Article

by Carey Gillam

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A month after receiving regulatory approval, Syngenta SYNN.VX is starting to sign up U.S. farmers to grow its new biotech corn seed aimed at ethanol production, one small part in a larger push for the U.S. corn seed business by the Swiss agriculture company.

Syngenta expects to enroll less than 20,000 acres in a contracted growing arrangement for the new corn seed this spring, a top company executive said Wednesday.

But a broad package of seed products offered in a year when corn seeding is expected to accelerate, should help the company stabilize what has been sliding market share in the United States, Syngenta Chief Financial Officer John Ramsay said at the Reuters Global Food and Agriculture Summit.

"We're hopeful that this will be the year that we are able to show clearly that having lost share is behind us," he said. "It is too early to say whether we'll gain share but we're certainly in a good position to start thinking about share gain in the future."

A drought-tolerant corn, and new insect-protected corn traits are part of the platform seen helping stabilize Syngenta's 10 percent share of the U.S. corn seed market, and set it up to grow share, Ramsay said.

Contracting With Corn Growers

The new amylase corn product contains an enzyme that catalyses the breakdown of starch into sugar and is expected to get off to a slow start.

Syngenta is meeting with growers in the western corn belt, primarily Kansas and Nebraska, to contract for acres for this growing season for planting of the new corn amylase, which Syngenta calls "Enogen.

Approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture February 11, the corn seed is the first genetically modified output trait in corn specifically aimed at the ethanol industry.

The plant has been engineered to express an alpha-amylase enzyme beneficial to ethanol makers that aims to make ethanol production more efficient and reduce costs for producers by 8 percent to 15 percent,

In signing up growers, the company is staying clear of key growing areas for corn used for food and livestock feed, amid concerns expressed from a variety of grain sectors about contamination by the new corn.

Ramsay said the company is committed to a "closed loop" system for the corn, including dedicated transportation arrangements.

The Enogen application lagged with regulators for more than two years, and Syngenta scaled down resources around the crop, but now is ramping that back up, he said.

"We'll be able to plant this year," Ramsay said.

The company has pledged to set up an advisory council of interested millers and others in the industry to avoid problems with contamination, though the company is still working on putting that group together.

Integration Gains Seen

In South America, which accounts for $2.6 billion of $11.6 billion of Syngenta's total revenue, Brazil has been the testing ground for an integration of Syngenta's seeds and crop protection teams. The integration has served as a pilot for the rest of the company.

"Brazil was very much a prototype to give us the management conviction that we could actually do this. This is not just about being able to sell things together," Ramsay said. "It is actually anticipating what we can do... to really really innovate around the combination of those technologies."

The integration, which is set to save the company $650 million in costs by 2015, is also seen increasing the company's overall market share by .5 percent for the total market of seeds and crop protection, he said.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by Alden Bentley and David Gregorio)