Bayer CropScience Acquires Hornbeck Seed Company

Posted by Matt Hopkins|28 March 2011

Bayer CropScience has entered into an agreement to purchase Hornbeck Seed Company Inc. (HBK), a privately-held company headquartered in DeWitt, Arkansas, USA, according to a press release.

Hornbeck is a seed company supplying soybean, rice, and wheat varieties in the southern US-market, with an in-house soybean breeding program and proprietary soybean germplasm. Bayer CropScience will acquire the seed businesses and gain access to quality soybean germplasm for future variety and trait development.

Hornbeck’s focus on breeding top yielding soybean varieties, combined with Bayer CropScience’s active trait research and development pipeline, including herbicide-tolerance and insect- and nematode resistance programs specific to soybean, will strengthen Bayer CropScience’s position as a provider of value-added seeds and traits, according to Bayer.

Bayer CropScience’s proprietary traits will be introgressed and commercialized via Hornbeck’s soybean germplasm base and high quality breeding program. Hornbeck varieties with the LibertyLink trait will continue to be a key near term area of focus of the breeding program to help address weed resistance in the southern US soybean market, according to the release.

“Soybean is a strategically important crop for Bayer CropScience, and this acquisition is an important first step towards realizing a fully integrated soybean business,” said Sandra E. Peterson, Chairman of the Board of Management at Bayer CropScience in a prepared statement. “ Hornbeck has a strong seed business and an excellent reputation in the marketplace, and the addition of this company to the Bayer CropScience team will allow us to serve soybean-farmers with complete solutions of seed, seed treatment, traits and crop protection solutions.”