Corteva, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Corteva AgriScience Q1 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Kim Booth, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Corteva's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Our prepared remarks today will be led by Chuck Magro, Chief Executive Officer, and David Johnson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, Judd O'Connor, Executive Vice President, Seed Business Unit, and Robert King, Executive Vice President, Crop Protection Business Unit, will join the Q&A session. We have prepared presentation slides to supplement our remarks during this call which are posted on the investor relations section of the Corteva website and through the link to our webcast. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are our expectations about the future. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could materially differ from these statements due to these risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those discussed on this call and in the risk factors section of our reports filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Please note in today's presentation, we'll be making references to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings press release and related schedules, along with our supplemental financial summary slide deck available on our investor relations website. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Chuck.

Thanks, Kim. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Spring is always a busy and exciting time for agriculture, and this year is no exception. Planning in the northern hemisphere is proceeding well, the weather has cooperated for the most part, and we are well positioned with technology that is in high demand. However, farmers remain cautious and value-driven. Crop mix and technology choices are increasingly strategic, aligning acreage and input decisions towards crops with the best demand signals. Overall, strong crop acreage is supporting strong seed and crop protection volume demand. There are some back half risks we are monitoring. We will discuss those today, but let's start with the quarter. Both seed and CP delivered healthy double-digit EBITDA gains with all-in benefits on price mix, volume, cost, and currency. Year over year, Corteva delivered a 21% increase in Q1 EBITDA and over 200 basis points of margin expansion driven by our core portfolio, our growth platforms, and focused cost execution. While some of seed's strong North American volume performance can be attributed to timing shift, price mix gains in every region are a clear signal that regardless of tight margins, farmers continue to plant our latest hybrids and varieties in order to increase yield per acre and their own profitability. Volume gains in crop protection across all regions were driven by double digit gains in new products and Spinozans, reflecting continued demand for our premium technologies. This performance allows us to reaffirm our full year guidance, which we announced in February. It also allows us to de-risk the second half of the year slightly. David will explain more. Factored into our guidance is the fact that farmers in the US are expecting to shift planted area from corn to soybeans, resulting in a projected 3 to 4 percent reduction in corn acres. And if current trends hold, Enlist beans will be planted on about 65 percent of all U.S. soybean acres in 2026. As it approaches maturity, Enlist is the number one selling soybean technology in the U.S. As you know, our focus is now set on becoming the leading provider of soybean technology in Brazil, the largest soybean market on the planet. Our branded corn business already holds the number one position in Brazil. We are confident our licensing model for soybeans will allow us to efficiently gain share in this critical market. We're making great strides on that front, and we're expecting trade penetration to cross into double digit this year. With regards to the Middle East conflict, although we have minimal commercial presence in the area, we're monitoring the situation closely. Given what we know today, While we're keeping an eye on any feedstock exposure to our supply base, the main impact for Corteva is currently related to increases in oil prices. However, given typical inventory cycle turns, we believe the 2026 impact is manageable within our current guidance range. David will get into the details, but we're also seeing some favorability on the tariff front from what we communicated in February. Globally, from an overall industry perspective, we continue to see mixed fundamentals. Record demand for grains and oilseeds continues, and farmers are investing in premium seed and crop protection technologies to enhance and protect their yields. Overall crop prices have increased from a year ago, but margins are still tight as large global crop production and geopolitical uncertainty continues to weigh on the markets, and several farmer input costs such as fertilizer and fuel have been impacted by higher oil prices. Our latest view on the crop protection market for the full year assumes modest growth with low single digit volume gains more than offsetting slightly negative pricing. For Corteva, we expect mid single digit volume gains more than offsetting low single digit pricing headwinds. So as we sit here today at the beginning of May, I'm pleased with our first quarter performance. As we all know, the first quarter doesn't dictate the full year in agriculture, but I'd say the first half is playing out a little better than expected. We're showing good progress on our growth platforms, and I believe we have the appropriate level of attention on improving our cost position through our controllable levers. Crossing the milestone of royalty neutrality into royalty positive later this year is a monumental accomplishment and a sign of what's to come. we already have over 100 independent seed company licensees for PowerCore Enlist corn and Enlist E3 soybeans. These self-help levers continue to drive value creation for the company and provide meaningful margin enhancement through the ag cycle. Let me also give you a quick update on our separation. First, we remain on track for a separation sometime in the fourth quarter, and we're trending favorably against our estimated 100 million of net dis-energy estimates. As you will have seen a few weeks ago, we announced the new CEO for the company that will become Corteva, home to our CP business. Luke Kism is an experienced CEO with a proven track record of delivering results, and we're pleased he'll be joining the company on June 1st. We also announced the two executive leadership teams for the new companies, both which include a mix of existing and new members, but all of whom are aligned to our culture and values. As such, they share a passion for agriculture, science and innovation, as well as a commitment to the teams that they will lead and the employees, customers, and shareholders they will serve. In addition, we filed our initial Form 10 with the Securities and Exchange Commission with the intention of having a public filing later in the second quarter. And last but not least, earlier this week, we announced the name of the future pure play global advanced seed and genetics company. When we started thinking of a new name for our new company, we knew we wanted to honor the legacy of the generations of employees and farmers whose ingenuity and hard work have fed the world. It made us an undisputed leader in solving some of the world's biggest challenges, including food and energy security. We wanted to ensure that the technology that stands our company apart was reflected in the brand with a look and feel that was modern and tech forward, but still rooted in the conviction that science and innovation can change the world for the better. I'm therefore pleased to introduce the culmination of our efforts, Vylor. The name itself is derived from the word valor. Again, acknowledging the generations whose work made Vylor possible. We will talk more about this at our September Investor Day event, but Vylor's success will be driven by industry-leading germplasm, biotech and gene editing capabilities, as well as a world-class pipeline that includes an exciting new licensing business, proprietary hybrid wheat technology launching next year, and a next gen biofuels development program. And with a nod towards the future, Vylor reflects our passion, our ambition, and our shared determination to advance agriculture to maybe one day opportunities beyond row crops. So you can see that this year is off to a busy start as we work to get this separation across the finish line while ensuring our customers continue to get the level of performance and support they have come to expect from Corteva. Before I turn it over to David, I'd like to take a minute to honor the fact that just a few weeks ago, Pioneer turned 100. an iconic brand if there ever was one. In 1926, Pioneer and its hybrid corn didn't just change agriculture, it changed the world. And we're about to do it again. And just like last time, we will do it with groundbreaking technologies from gene editing to hybrid wheat to safe, effective, sustainable crop protection products, including biologicals. It's easy to lose sight of accomplishments when we're so focused on the critical tasks at hand. but a milestone like this deserves to be celebrated. Lastly, I want to take a moment to recognize our employees for staying focused on what matters most, executing for our customers while managing a significant number of competing priorities during the quarter. David, over to you.