Belchim Crop Protection is a development company that has harmonised its operations, both locally and globally, with all of the increasingly stringent environmental and safety standards for the programme of professional plant protection.
This year is a special one for us and it will be inscribed in golden letters, because we are proudly announcing the creation of a new company – Certis Belchim B.V. – through the merging of Certis Europe B.V. and Belchim Crop Protection NV / SA, with the slogan ‘Growing together’ – announces Belchim Crop Protection Serbia, Country Manager Vladimir Vasojević.
Agriculture has been the central pillar of our country for centuries, particularly during difficult and challenging times. Can agriculture continue to be our central pillar and our trump card in the years ahead?
The people who live in our region have been forced to adapt to all historical tribulations. That’s also the case with the global crisis that we all find ourselves living through today. We all need to work more intelligently, each in their own field.
During times of unstable market and monetary conditions, the optimising and adapting of all processes is a key and crucial element of company success, both in the agricultural sector and beyond. In times of such opportunities and predicaments, maintaining a balance between environmental norms and the quality of agricultural production represents a great challenge.
Environmentally sustainable agriculture starts with the kind of professional plant protection that’s promoted by your company. Is this the best route to great yields and top-quality products?
The concept of environmentally sustainable and professional plant protection is based on the functional integrating of conventional (traditional) and environmentally friendly agriculture, alongside applicable biorational solutions for plant protection. Since its very inception, our company has understood the essential need to conduct tests and the huge importance of knowledge, which come as a result of product testing in real time. As the company developed, so did the important need for permanent testing stations. Our company’s first testing station was established in 2006 in [the Belgian municipality of] Londerzeel, which is just a 10-minute drive from the company’s headquarters. It was in 2016 that we launched the construction of our second testing station, which is located in the commune of Fronton near the French city of Toulouse. The focus at this testing station is on agricultural cultures from Southern and Southeast Europe. This process of constantly striving to achieve better and higher quality products represents the best route to great yields and top-quality products.
Has increased awareness about the importance of proper and healthy nutrition led to you working more intensively to harmonise your operations with increasingly stringent environmental and safety standards?
The production of food, or agricultural production, represents – in addition to human health – a priority sustainability goal for every society. The unexpected global crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has continued with a crisis of price instability for agricultural raw materials and semi-finished products. These events represent a global challenge. Nobody expected this kind of scenario. This is the right juncture for us to once again prove our key advantage and strength: flexibility.
We have consolidated operations, our team has taken a proactive approach to conducting all necessary works to ensure that our proven, innovative solutions would be available to all of our agricultural producers. Our team responded to this challenge in the right way, which makes us very proud.
Do we have the knowhow and resources to keep pace with trends? To what extent are your products for improving agricultural production available to small producers?
In the scope of my work to date, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many high-quality people from all areas of agrotechnology and food sciences, across Europe and around the world. My general conclusion is that we have all the elements needed for success right here in our country and region, both in term of knowhow and the experience needed to be able to keep pace with world trends and accept those technologies that can place us among the worldwide competition to achieve high yields.
Constantly striving to achieve better and higher quality products represents the best route to great yields and top-quality products
Our lands already have serious professional producers and companies that are already competing in that game and have already reached the very top, with their excellent yields and product quality. We see the role of our company as being to share as much as possible and to connect, doing everything in our power to help improve things greatly in the part in which producers need to advance. It is only in this way that we can count on generating better average yields. We see that as a huge challenge.
You have launched the establishing of a new company that will represent a new force in plant protection, with strong foundations and great possibilities of conquering new markets. How much progress has been made with that?
For this year, we’re announcing the creation of the company Certis Belchim B.V., through the merging of Certis Europe B.V. and Belchim Crop Protection NV/SA. Certis Europe and Belchim Crop Protection are both development companies that operate on the global market for plant protection, with a strong position in environmentally friendly biorational products that satisfy the requirements of sustainable agricultural production. Both companies are subsidiaries of Japanese company Mitsui & Co. Ltd., which forms part of Mitsui AgriScience International SA/NV. The merging and synergising of these two companies will enable Certis Belchim to further develop sustainable plant protection solutions while maintaining a stronger market position.
Will new company Certis Belchim introduce new solutions with the same dynamics as your company has done to date?
Certis Belchim develops professional, environmentally- friendly solutions in all branches of plant production: viticulture and the cultivation of fruit, vegetables and field crops. There are no small and large market segments for us, no small and large producers, rather only optimal, environmentally- friendly solutions that can help improve the competitiveness of the agriculture of our region. This year, together with our Japanese and European partners, we have once again presented several products that are new to our market and will soon represent the standard in plant protection. We have harmonised our operations, both locally and globally, with all increasingly stringent environmental and safety standards through our professional plant protection programme, which aligns with the concept of precision agriculture. We invest in the development of new products through testing that we conduct everywhere, both across this region and around the world. We are working to make our products safer through so-called biorational solutions.
If you had to highlight just a few of the characteristics that best describe Certis Belchim, like innovative and adaptable, what would they be? What essentially distinguishes you from the competition?
Certis Belchim combines the strengths of two renowned companies in the area of plant protection, offering an even richer portfolio of products and additional resources to provide the highest level of technical support and customer service. Our new company is supported by Mitsui & Co. Ltd. With its global resources, as well as four major Japanese research and development companies: Nippon Soda, ISK Biosciences, Kumiai and Mitsui Chemicals Agriculture. Coupled with the developmental, regulatory and marketing expertise that exists within Certis Belchim, these companies bring innovative and exciting new solutions for plant protection, both around the world and across our region: Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Albania.