Overview

DSCL offers a range of hybrid seeds in the country via its 100% subsidiary Shriram BioSeed Genetics India Ltd. The Company also operates its seeds business in Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand and proposes to expand to other locations in Asia Pacific region. At present, the Company deals in Corn, Bajra ( Pearl Millet), Jowar, Paddy,  BT Cotton, Vegetables and Sunflower seeds.

Our seeds business is a strong R&D-led operation that develops, produces and markets high quality hybrid seeds. Currently, hybrid corn seeds account for most of our sales from this business. The other hybrid seeds in our portfolio include cotton, sunflower, bajra, jowar, SSG, and paddy. Having established ourselves as one of the country's top three players in the hybrid corn seeds market, we are now actively engaged in conducting R&D towards the development of new hybrids that possess robust disease resistance properties and offer a high and stable yield performance across varying climate conditions, while ensuring high grain quality.

We have invested in establishing a robust R&D infrastructure in Hyderabad and Philippines. Our team consists of qualified professionals and scientists working in the areas of genetics, plant breeding, and seed technology who leverage modern biotechnology tools and technologies to develop new and better value-added products.

The Company, keeping with best practices has also created a comprehensive physical infrastructure encompassing a seed conditioning plant, a cold-storage facility besides quality assurance facilities and multiple parent seed farms. That along with an able workforce and process competencies allows DSCL to market its products more profitably. Furthermore, the company's existing marketing and distribution set up provides a ready platform to sell the hybrid seeds, thus substantially lowering the cost of operations and time-to-market for new products

The overseas operations for hybrid seeds are gaining traction, with the operations at Vietnam already supplying to a fifth of the market.

A brief description of the overseas companies are given below :

BRP - Bioseed Research Philippines

BRP was established in 1992 with its main office is in south Philippines in city named General Santos.The company has a total of 90 people. BRP is one of the most important Tropical Breeding Station of our seed business and the company also does commercial sales. BRP's market share in corn in Philippines is 14%, it has also started selling hybrid rice seed from year 2004-05.

BVL-Bioseed Vietnam Limited

DSCL had two companies in Vietnam namely, Bioseed Genetics Vietnam (BGV) and Bioseed Research Vietnam (BRV) which were merged in 2008 to become Bioseed Vitenam Limited.BGV and BRV were established in 1992.This company has presence in both in North and South Vietnam. BGV was the first operations in Agribusiness in Vietnam and deals in Hybrid Corn Seeds and is amongst the three top private players in hybrid corn market.

Going Forward

The Company, encouraged by the potential from this business is investing more resources to broaden the product basket and is currently engaged in researching different crops like pearl millet, sorghum, rice and certain vegetable varieties.

The company had also taken initiative to commence Biotechnology based research. For this purpose work was done using ICRISAT facilities in Hyderabad. BRI also worked with department of Science and technology for sponsored Biotechnology project.

Further the company has licensed BT technology and has launched BT cotton seeds in the Indian market

The Company's overseas operations have in a short span of time established themselves as both serious and large players in those markets and have begun contributing to the Company's top and bottom-line. Going forward earnings contribution from these operations can be expected to improve further .

Further,the company has also started its operations in Thailand and plans to enter other south-asian countries going forward.