Reflecting on 2023

As we close 2023, we can take a few minutes to reflect on the year and some of the highlights. For Agspec, we achieved a particular milestone, celebrating our 20 year anniversary. This event was held in Penang, Malaysia with staff from Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea attending.

From humble beginnings and a small office in Hong Kong (later relocated to Singapore), we now have legal entities in the key markets of Southeast Asia and Australia, and established distributors in most of the region's markets.

We celebrated several staff milestones and key people contributing to Agspec’s journey. Five year service awards were presented to Jon Corona and Jutharat Ardharn. Ten year awards were presented to Liu Minh Be, Frank Munoz, Kanyika Sopha, and Darat Mahapong. Nguyen Xuan Viet Tuan was presented with a special award for his 19 year service to the company.

Business has continued to expand across the Asia-Pacific region, with our companies experiencing good growth as our post-Covid recovery continues.

Agspec Group Managing Director Andrew Glynn remarked,

“The business has been generally quite good. Our Asian businesses are progressing through our R&D investment in various tropical tree crops, including coconuts and durian, as well as additional staffing.”

Australia’s General Manager, Jonathon Lillecrapp, added that, "Australia has experienced excellent growth due to a favourable early broadacre season, strong sales of trace elements, biostimulants, and molluscicide, and the expansion of our field team.”

Durian continues to be the powerhouse for most South East Asian businesses, with significant plantings in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and The Philippines. While not often appreciated by Western consumers, the fragrant fruit is sought-after by middle and upper-class Asian consumers, especially in China. Indeed, it has proved to be a boom for fruit growers in this region, who are switching from less profitable crops to Durian.

While Durian is not the only crop Agspec is working on, it is vital for our seaweed-based biostimulants, such as Agsea-Bio?. Following three years of research, Agspec launched Agsea-AA? in 2023 for use in coconuts, sugar cane and rice. The product has proved useful in reducing fruit drop and cracking of coconuts, improving the establishment and yield of cane and reducing Cropshock? in rice following applications of pre-emergence herbicides.

So far, 2024 is looking promising. Andrew reports that,

“We are continuing our strategy of building our technical sales team. Three more positions have been created in Thailand, including a field development agronomist working with sugar cane growers using Agsea-AA. In Korea, we have added one sales representative in the south, where the biostimulant Martello? shows promise in reducing heat stress in hothouse strawberries. In Australia, we are currently filling the position of Business Manager for southern New South Wales.”

At the 20-year anniversary conference in Penang, Jonathon and Andrew rolled out their new strategy for Agspec: “Sustainable Innovative Solutions”. While we realise that traditional fertilisers and pesticides will remain important, there is an increasing consumer trend for food grown using environmentally sustainable practices. Thus, biostimulants will become increasingly important for Agspec, as will our bio-pesticides, currently under evaluation.

We look forward to a productive and dynamic year in 2024, supporting growers and driving innovation through research and collaboration.