AGRI products and services company DuPont is keen to focus on its crop protection business in India and hopes to launch more products in the coming few years in line with locally driven research, according to James C Borel, executive vicepresident, DuPont.

The company would also add 100 employees to its existing R&D workforce of around 400 at Hyderabad by year end.

“India is a significant market and a major agri producer. There lies huge opportunity to increase agri production here as the average yield is just one third of what it is in the US. We will be investing towards newer and better crop production by localising our research efforts as much possible. We have an exciting pipeline of products in all our categories,“ he said.

The DuPont knowledge centre in Hyderabad supports research in areas like agricultural and industrial biotechnology and development of new products for Indian market and Asia Pacific region as well.

This is the sixth of the seven DuPont global R&D Centers outside the US.

Meanwhile, the company's crop protection business in India had launched six products in the last two years and hopes to launch a similar range in the next two to three years globally. The current marketed products are said to be being treated on over 6 million acre.

“The business will pursue its aggressive growth path with many new products under development that are likely to be commercialised starting from the fourth quarter this fiscal,“ said Ram Mudholkar, business director South Asia and Asea.