DuPont’s Bajwa Says Africa Could More Than Double Corn Yields
- Continent has 35 Million hectares planted with the grain
- Average yield on African land planted with corn under 2 tons
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DuPont Co.’s Pioneer unit, the biggest supplier of hybrid corn seed in Africa, said farmers of the grain on the continent could more than double productivity over the next few decades if they switched to hybrid seed.
The continent currently has about 35 million hectares (86.5 million acres) planted with corn, yielding under 2 metric tons per hectare, Prabdeep Bajwa, the African regional business director for Pioneer, said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office on Aug. 5. Productivity could rise to an average of between 5 and 7 tons per hectare if farmers used the right seed, he said. The amount of land under corn is unlikely to increase, he said.