Wageningen, March 20, 2012

Bioseed Research India and KeyGene announce a strategic partnership for development of drought tolerant crop varieties for India and South-East Asia
Today Bioseed Research India Pvt. Ltd., a leading research and hybrid seed development company, which is 100% owned by the Indian company DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd. (DSCL), and KeyGene, an integrated technology and trait research company established in the Netherlands, announce a strategic partnership to discover new traits for increasing crop yields in South and South East Asia. Under this partnership both companies will make joint investments and will initially focus on the development of abiotic stress tolerant crop varieties. The global warming driven climate change is expected to increase both occurrence and severity of drought. Therefore, in our partnership with KeyGene, we are targeting to develop new crop varieties which could combine high yield potential with high drought tolerance. says Vikram S. Shriram, Vice Chairman & Managing Director of DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd. Arjen van Tunen, CEO of KeyGene explains: The aim of this strategic investment is to generate added value in corn and rice by increasing abiotic stress tolerance, in particular drought tolerance, for the Indian and South-East Asian seed market. The seed company, the trait research company and the farmer all benefit from the added value of products developed in the program. He adds: It will also help to secure the productivity and income of the farmers, particularly when more difficult environmental circumstances are applicable. Our germplasm has been empirically selected for drought tolerance and we are excited about the opportunity of using KeyGenes proprietary technologies to develop molecular breeding tools which will enable us to breed for drought tolerance with increased precision and efficiency, says Paresh Verma, Director Research at Bioseed Research India. Herco van Liere, VP Business Development at KeyGene: This strategic investment in trait development builds upon our strategic partnership agreement, which has been successfully running since 2009. In our extended collaboration KeyGene will add value through its various proprietary technology platforms, including KeySeeQ and KeyPoint Mutation Breeding, and its drought tolerant trait know-how. Bioseed Research India has strong breeding programs in all major field crops in several countries in South and South-East Asia, including India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. Combining KeyGenes Green Gene Revolution technology & trait platforms for Lead Discovery, Molecular Mutagenesis and Accelerated Molecular Breeding with Bioseeds excellent natural germplasm, enables both companies to identify and validate naturally occurring genes for use in drought tolerance and development of improved seed products.
About Bioseed Research India - DSCL Bioseed Research India (BRI), approved by the Government of India as a technology development company, is 100% owned by DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd (DSCL) and is part of the seed businesses of DSCL under the brand name of 'Bioseed'. DSCL is a 1 billion USD group and has presence in mainly two areas: Agri/Rural business & Chlorovinyl business. The group, founded in 1889, has been a pioneer in the industrialization of India. Its Agri/Rural businesses are partner to farmers for increasing his profits/productivity. With a strong focus on R&D, Bioseed Research India has been able to generate new traits in the field crops corn, rice, cotton, millet and the vegetables tomato, okra, brinjal, chilli, gourds in India and South-East Asia. About KeyGene KeyGene is a privately owned, innovative molecular genetics Ag Biotech company with a primary focus on the improvement of 6F (Food, Feed, Fiber, Fuel, Flowers and Fun) crops. KeyGenes passion is a Green Gene Revolution approach to explore and exploit existing and induced natural genetic variation in vegetable and other 6F crops. KeyGene delivers sustainable responses to the worlds needs for yield stability & quality of vegetable and field crops. We help our strategic partners with cutting edge breeding technologies and plant based trait platforms to meet their needs. We perform strategic and applied research with more than 135 employees from all over the world, with state of the art facilities and equipment. KeyGene has its headquarters in Wageningen, the Netherlands, a subsidiary in Rockville, USA and a Joint Lab with the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences in Shanghai, China. For more information, please contact: Ms. Aman Pannu, Head Corporate Communications DSCL (www.dscl.com), tel: +91 989 907 8610, amanpannu@dscl.com, or Ms. Niclaudi Boons, PR & Corporate Communication KeyGene (www.keygene.com), tel. +31 317 466 866 or nbo@keygene.com

KeyGene and KeyPoint are registered trademarks of Keygene N.V. Application for trademark registration for KeySeeQ has been filed by Keygene N.V. The KeyPoint technology is covered by patents and/or patent applications owned by Keygene N.V.