DuPont sees the field, which also includes biologically engineered medicines and materials for clothing, shaping its future. It is building a plant biotechnology research facility near Des Moines, Iowa, that company officials hope will amass the kind of inventive record that has seen DuPont create such household names as cellophane, rayon, nylon, Teflon, Mylar, Lycra and hundreds more.
Expectations are great.
What's driving all the expectations is a revolution just beginning in agriculture, with implications for many industries in the next century. As important, DuPont, with 97,000 employees, is demonstrating how all companies large and small have to embrace change in these times. There are signposts for investors in both the technology and the family company's changing management. In agriculture, genetic technology is allowing the development of custom food crops. For example, Optimum Quality Grains, the company put together by DuPont and Pioneer, is producing corn with higher oil content.