E
xactly one year after Corteva announced plans to divide its 
seed and crop protection businesses, Vylor officially came 
into being on 1 October 2026.
For Europe’s seed sector, that creates an unusual kind of 
new company. The name is new. Much of the underlying busi­
ness is not. Pioneer® remains the flagship farmer-facing brand, 
established breeding programs continue, and Vylor starts life 
carrying over a large global research, production and commer­
cial footprint. What changes is the structure around those assets.
Jean-Philippe Riffat, who leads Vylor across EMEA and 
APAC, describes the opportunity as creating “a global pure-
play agricultural genetics platform” able to take existing scien­
tific leadership into new areas. The proposition that Vylor will 
be launching to market over the coming weeks, including at 
Euroseeds, is that the core business remains seed, but the ambi­
tion is broader: new crops, technologies, uses and partnerships. 
Across conversations with Vylor’s incoming EMEA-APAC 
leadership, three messages come through most clearly for the 
seed sector: Vylor is ready to operate independently, innovation 
will be central to its growth, and collaboration with other seed 
companies will play a much larger role in how it goes to market. 
“We’re open for business as a genetics, technology and 
licensing partner,” says Riffat.
THE FAMILIAR BRANDS REMAIN
Loïc Boucher, Vylor’s EMEA and APAC Marketing and Commercial 
Effectiveness Leader, says Pioneer, Brevant® and other estab­
lished commercial brands will remain grower-facing. Vylor has 
a different role: it is the corporate and partner-facing identity 
behind the genetics, technology and licensing business.
“Vylor will establish its own identity by providing competi­
tive genetics, delivering reliability and helping its customers, the 
partners, to grow,” Boucher says.
Vylor Is Open for Business: 
What Changes for Europe’s Seed Sector
VYLOR, THE NEW STANDALONE ADVANCED SEED AND GENETICS COMPANY, BRINGS 
ESTABLISHED BRANDS, GERMPLASM AND GLOBAL R&D SCALE. THE MORE INTERESTING STORY 
IS HOW THE COMPANY INTENDS TO USE THEM. BY: MADELEINE BAERG, GENERAL MANAGER & EVP, OPERATIONS
Its relevance to the seed trade will therefore depend less 
on putting a new corporate logo on bags of seed and more 
on what sits behind the name: genetics, licensing, technology, 
technical support and different routes to market.
Vylor is also genuinely separate from Corteva.
André Negreiros, Vylor’s Southern Europe Commercial Unit 
Leader, says that was one of the most common points of con­
fusion he encountered ahead of the split: whether Vylor and 
Corteva would separate while somehow remaining parts of the 
same company.
“This is definitely not the case. We’re two independent 
companies,” Negreiros says. “There will be tons of agreements 
between the two companies, but we are completely separate. 
The leadership is different and, over time, potentially the inves­
tors will be different. We are two different companies now with 
two different goals.” 
WHERE VYLOR SEES ROOM TO GROW 
Riffat sees three key routes for Vylor to expand its genetics busi­
ness. Taken together, those three opportunities show an innova­
tion strategy that extends beyond simply developing a hybrid 
that outperforms the one before it. 
The first route is to get more from crops where Vylor already 
has substantial breeding depth. Gene editing, not surprisingly, 
will be central to that pillar. 
“Through gene editing, we’re going to put more solutions 
in the plant for farmers,” he says, describing gene editing as 
“a core of our future as a company.” Riffat points to resilience, 
including the ability to maintain performance under drought and 
other environmental pressures, as an important target for the 
genetics pipeline.
The second route is to take Vylor’s breeding capabilities 
further into additional crops. Hybrid wheat is the clearest exam­
22  I  SEED WORLD EUROPE  I  SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE | OCTOBER 2026

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