I want to get going on this one with Corteva. We have so much to talk about, but anyway, I want to make sure you know who's up here with me. Dave Anderson, CFO of Corteva, and Chuck Magro, CEO. Chuck has been in this conference for many, many years. He was previously representing Nutrien. At one time he was previously representing Agrium before that, so but he's got a wealth of experience and he's been in my world for a long time as Nova Chemicals before that. But a lot of moving parts in agriculture that are affecting Corteva, so got a lot of things to talk about. I got way more than 30 minutes of questions here, but if you want to jump in later, for sure we'll give you that opportunity.
Maybe to start things off here, Chuck, maybe some high-level comments about where you see 2024 going for Corteva.
Yeah, sure, sure. Good to see you, Steven. Looks like another great turnout, so congratulations. Hi everyone, it's nice to be here with you today. Look, there is a lot going on in Ag. Let me start just with the high-level market, and then I'll, I'll give you some Corteva comments, and then I'm going to ask Dave to give some specifics about how he sees the year. So look, the general outlook, I think, for, for Ag is still, very constructive. If you start to think about what we've come off of, though, we-we have come off the peak in the Ag cycle, and, and that should be no surprise to, to anyone. We've had two or three years of just very strong crop prices, and farmer incomes around the world have been very solid.
But where we sit today, we still have pricing that is at or around the historical average. Farmers are quite liquid still. They have very strong balance sheets. And on-farm demand, especially for top technology and seed and CP, is still very, very strong. And it's been steady and healthy throughout the cycle and even where we sit today. The seed industry, I'd say right now, particularly, we're seeing a lot of strength, especially for top hybrids and varieties. Farmers are still prioritizing technology. That is very, very clear. In CP, you know, now I guess the stories a year older or a little longer than that, this global phenomenon of destocking, we still see the CP market globally as somewhat unbalanced. And we expect that to continue, certainly in the first half of this year.
In fact, I'd say the first quarter of this year is going to be quite rough. But as we get through the second half of 2024, we believe that the global industry will start to stabilize and then return to growth once we get into 2025. I think so there's a lot to talk about there, Steve, but maybe I'll just quickly talk about Corteva. When we think about Corteva, all of that consideration about the outlook is built into the guide that we gave just a few weeks ago, when we wrapped up the fourth quarter of 2023. I'd say we're expecting another year of earnings growth and margin expansion as Corteva.
So even though the market conditions are what they are, which we think are not going to help us, but certainly not going to hurt us, we think that we're going to be able to show a lot of growth. And where's that going to come from? It's going to come from our seed business, which we're seeing considerable strength. And then a lot of what we call our self-help actions. We've got a lot of opportunity to continue to drive productivity, to optimize our portfolio. We've got the royalty reductions, which I'm sure we'll talk about in our seed franchise, and all of that coming together, we feel very comfortable that that is well within our control. So maybe, Dave, over to you to talk a little bit about some specifics.
Yeah, I'll just give a little bit of color. Thanks, Chuck. Give a little bit of color and a few numbers. So relatively modest top line. We're looking at the midpoint of our guide in terms of revenues at 2%, full year 2024 compared to 2023. But as Chuck said, earnings growth and margin expansion, so the combination of the productivity and the other things, I'll mention those in a little more specifics in a moment, the combination of those translates to a 6% at the midpoint EBITDA dollar growth year-over-year and roughly 90 basis points of margin expansion at the midpoint. And Steve, you recall just going back a few years ago, one of the things we talked about was benchmarking against peers. We've made a significant amount of progress that EBITDA margin translates to north of 20%.
So that's really putting us into that upper echelon of, of peer performance in terms of EBITDA margin. Now, self-help, key is, Chuck said, productivity and cost actions. That's going to be another $200 million of benefit goodness to us 2024 compared to 2023. And by the way, 2023 was, was stellar. We had over $300 million of productivity benefit that contributed to our bottom line and our earnings growth in 2023. Royalty expense as well as royalty income. We've been on a path of improvement there. It's really driven by particularly around our seed technology. We've got another $100 million of benefit in 2024 compared to 2023. And by the way, 2023 was a $200 million lift in terms of royalty benefit, 2023 compared to 2022. So that's part of the flywheel, if you will, that's working for us in terms of contributing to our bottom line.
We're also benefiting. You recall that we closed on the biologicals acquisitions, the two deals that we closed on in March of 2023. They did quite well over the course of 2023. They're going to give us another lift in 2024, a full year of ownership, plus the combination of those acquisitions together with our, call it, Corteva Biologicals. That is a nice lift both revenue-wise and, and EBITDA-wise for 2024. So those are three of the components of the guide that we've given of $350-$450 million of self-help or controlling the controllables. That's so key in terms of our formula. It's going to be very quickly. It's going to be a very different year in terms of phasing. This year is going to be, compared to last year, we had about 88% of our EBITDA was generated in the first half of last year.
It's going to be closer to 80% of our $3.6 billion EBITDA dollars at the midpoint of our guide. That'll be in the first half, obviously 20% in the second half. Very importantly, very different in terms of the quarterly pattern for that first half. So Q1, we're coming off a very strong first quarter of 2023. We had yet to really feel the impact of the crop protection destocking phenomenon, which really, really came about significantly in the second quarter. So when you compare Q1 of 2024 to Q1 of 2023, it's a very tough, tough comp. In fact, you kind of have to go back almost to 2021 to see sort of something that's comparable in terms of that distribution.
We still anticipate to be very good for the first half and roughly even in terms of EBITDA on a year-over-year basis for the first half of the year. Cash flow, as you know, Steve, is also good. We distinguish ourselves in terms of our peers in terms of cash flow. We're looking at about a guide of about $1.5 billion-$2 billion, called $1.75 billion at the midpoint of cash, which translates to about a 50% conversion as a percent of EBITDA. Looking for another strong year in 2024.
With respect to the net royalty reduction, I recall, when Corteva was spun out, that was roughly an $800 million drag, which weighed pretty heavily on margins. Can you talk us through? I think you're probably half of that now, somewhere in that range.
Yep.
You got four levers that, as I think about it in a simplistic sense, you got royalty expense for traits that you are reducing. You, you have had some royalty expense for germplasm. That's probably significantly down. And now you're moving over towards royalty income from traits and royalty income from germplasm. Can you talk through where you see that going from here? Which of those levers are the most meaningful?
Maybe I could do the numbers, Chuck, and then you could talk in terms of strategy. And again, one of the very important elements of the Corteva story and our valuation and the strength of the overall franchise. And as you said, Steve, a progression from, if you will, in-licensing to now out-licensing. So for 2024, I mentioned we're going to have $100 million of improvement in terms of overall royalty benefit compared to last year, compared to 2023. Now, a portion of that is royalty expense reduction, so the in-licensing payments. But now we're starting to see the out-licensing income. In fact, our out-licensing income, which is approximately about $150 million in 2023, is going to grow between 25% and 30% increase in 2024.
That's going to now start compounding in terms of rate of growth as we go forward, 2025, etc. It's a significant testimony to not only the technology and the leverage that we've been able to gain in the marketplace, but also it's a true testament to the management that we're seeing over time of this whole balance between the we'll always have some, obviously, in-licensing, but now the balance that we're getting in terms of the strength of the out-licensing. Chuck, maybe some specifics.
Well, I think Dave covered that well. So look, I the way we consider it, this has been years in the making. And it takes that long to develop the next generation of technology that we have freedom to operate. We will always in-license technology because it's a competitive marketplace and we want to make sure that our customers have the latest technology. But I think where we're at right now is especially when it comes to soybeans, corn, and canola, we've got that next generation of technology and there's a lot of interest in it. If you look at the corn portfolio, for example, first of all, I'd say we haven't been in this attractive of a position in our corn portfolio in a very, very long time. We're seeing good market share gains in all the core markets.
The products are performing very well for farmers around the world. And now, just last year, we launched what we call PowerCore Enlist, which is our next generation of technology. It has the Enlist herbicide protection with insecticide traits built into the seed. next-gen technology, full freedom to operate. And we have a lot of interest now for folks that want to license that technology. So that's going to be the driver to get to royalty neutral by, I'd say, the end of the decade. It's probably going to be a year or two sooner than that. We're ahead of schedule right now with what we can see. And then even beyond that, so once we get to royalty neutral, say, by 2030, 2028, 2029, 2030, the next generation of technology looks really good in our field trials.
So this has very unique modes of operation, really different science behind it. It has even better insect control that we're seeing. And so we think that this out-licensing strategy is going to actually continue well beyond 2030. And when we get to our investor day in November of this year, when we'll make some announcements around that, we're going to talk about out-licensing as a possible and a great opportunity in terms of a growth platform for Corteva because we're feeling very good about our technology.
Before we toured your R&D center in Indy last September, we went to GDM's research farm in Illinois, and they were very excited about working with you to help out-license your germplasm. Do you see that as a meaningful driver, or do you think it's more the royalty income that you can get from, like, PowerCore and from Enlist? Is it more trait or germplasm down the road?
Yeah, I'd say the answer is yes. There's a lot of interest, I think. Look, for the future success of seed of any seed business, you need both. You need to be able to have an elite germplasm that drives genetic yield, and when it comes to yields on the farm. And then you need to protect that seed, which is the biotech traits. And then if you add gene editing into that, it takes us to a whole different level. And I think that there's, you know, Corteva is really well positioned as a technology owner in all three of these dimensions. And GDM is a great partner with us. We have over 100 partnerships right now with licensees that are looking for this type of technology.
That's because, you know, simply put, it's just getting more difficult to grow a crop. We're seeing disease and insect stresses around the world that we haven't seen before at levels. And so this technology is absolutely critical, I think, to ensure global food security.
You mentioned gene editing, so I'm going to jump into that.
Yeah, sure.
By the way, we have a panel discussion on the seed industry right after lunch. And their head of R&D will be on that panel, and I'm sure it will be heavily focused on the outlook for gene editing. But maybe, maybe high level, Chuck, where, where do you see the benefit of this, this new pathway for in Europe being adopted to enable gene-edited seeds, you know, in Europe? How does that benefit your seed business?
Yeah, so I guess let me start with just technologies like this are sort of once in a generation. We saw it with biotech 25 years ago, but biotech is 25 years old. And thank goodness that technology came to the market because I think we would not see the yields in the food production that we have today. And we think gene editing has as much potential or even potentially more as we understand the tools available to us and the science behind it. And gene editing, for those that are not that familiar with it, I call it precision breeding. It's a gross oversimplification. So go to the panel and Sam will talk, tell you about the specifics. But what it allows us to do is tailor-make crops for very specific environments and uses.
And it allows us to do that and to focus on really three core things. We believe very strongly that we're going to see significant yield increases based on where we are today, and the tools that are available. We also think that it's going to be a lot more straightforward to bring disease protection into the seed and maybe even one day more insect protection. So long thesis here, but really lots of opportunity. And then also to reduce our overall cost per production or cost per unit. And so these three things I think could be potentially game-changing for farmers around the world. So with that backdrop, the EU in the last month or so has made very constructive steps. So I would say today I'm cautiously optimistic that we're on a path where Europe will approve the technology.
There's still some other jurisdictions that we need, but this is all shaping up, I think, to see that gene editing will have the freedom to operate and we will have the freedom to operate in the near future, in this decade. And I think that that is a really important milestone for the industry. Now, for Corteva, you asked about Corteva. I guess what I'd say, Steve, is we are going all in. We have doubled our investment in R&D year-over-year when it comes to gene editing, and we're positioning ourselves to have products available when there is freedom to operate. And it may be a few select products at first, but the ones that we have that are furthest along in the pipeline, they themselves will make a big difference to agriculture around the world.
So we're very looking forward to seeing what happens with the regulatory framework. But the path that we're on, I think we're going to see gene editing come to the world here soon. And thank goodness, because I think one thing that is different, I think, than GMOs all these years ago is governments and farming organizations know they need this technology. And so we need to get it into the right hands and we need to deploy it as soon as we can.
I want to talk a little bit about dicamba and the.
You know, we, that's not us, right?
I know, but it could be meaningful. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to with respect to the publication that we highlighted a couple of weeks ago about dicamba showing up increasingly in pregnant women's urine. Do you have a view on whether that technology is at risk of being in the market in 2025? I bring it up because it would have a potentially meaningful benefit to you.
Yeah, so look, I think whether dicamba gets re-registered or not is probably not for Corteva or for myself to speculate on. That's going to be up to the EPA. However, when you make reference to the Enlist platform, which is an alternative for farmers to use, what I'd say there is overall, we're very pleased with the Enlist platform. Last year it became in soybeans the number one U.S. selling soybean brand. And that is something that we are very, very proud of. And that happened in relatively short order, four or five years. And Enlist was on 58% of the U.S. soybean acres in 2023. In 2024, we think that's going to grow further, 60%, maybe even a little bit more. So the Enlist platform is still growing in the U.S.
For the Enlist registration, that happened in 2022. The extension was 7 years. So there's no uncertainty around Enlist when it comes to whether farmers will have that tool available, at least for the next 5 years or so. And the one other difference, I think, for Enlist is it was one of the first molecules that went through the new endangered species review, which is a next level of sort of environmental review that it's now necessary and needed. And we were very pleased with the label that came out of that process. So the only other comment I'll make on Enlist, because our customers have asked us, we do have ample supply of the seed available for the 2024 season, as well as the Enlist herbicide, and for the 2024 season. So, Steve, maybe I'll leave it there.
Okay. Maybe hand it over to you, Dave. Use of cash flow, anything that you're looking at for deployment, M&A. Where would you prioritize use of cash flow?
Sure. Maybe, maybe, maybe start by just, reinforcing something that, you know, we feel very, very strongly about, very positively about, which is the strength of our overall balance sheet and the flexibility that, that it represents. We think that's, you know, really, again, a standout in this environment. So that, that's, that's a key starting point. If you look at 2023, again, I mentioned the acquisitions. So round numbers about $1.5 billion for acquisitions and other $600 million for CapEx. So $2.1 billion, if you will, for growth in terms of our deployment. And we repurchased $750 million worth of our own shares, paid a dividend. Round number is $440 million of dividend in 2023. So an important statement in terms of our commitment of returning cash to shareholders as well. We like that, that balance.
We talk about that balance between growth and reinvestment in the business and also, obviously, returning cash to shareholders. Now, acquisitions come along only occasionally. The lens it has to fit for us is, is obviously, it's got to be a strategic fit, make operational sense, and deliver financial returns. I mentioned the strength of our biologicals acquisitions. I feel very good about the contribution they made in 2023, about $400 million of revenues and about $80 million of, of EBITDA for the, for the 10 months that we owned them in 2023. That's going to expand and grow importantly in 2024. Steve, on M&A, we're going to continue to be very disciplined. We're going to only look at things that make sense.
We're going to be investing with Sam in some venture funding, helping to complement and accelerate our key priorities in terms of technology and technology advancement. And then other, if you will, sort of adjacencies or bolt-ons, bolt-ons with a focus, particularly in our biologicals franchise, which is obviously becoming more significant, as we turn the corner into 2024. So it's a really, a focused and balanced, if you will, deployment of capital against the backdrop of a strong balance sheet, strong cash flow, and the flexibility that that represents.
All right. I want to ask a question about Brevant. But anybody want to jump in with a question? Just want to make sure we have one up here. I think she's right there.
So I want to ask if you can give us an update on, I guess reduced stature corn. How are things progressing? Are you doing any field trials or, you know, and how is the commercialization going? And I don't know if you can discuss, but what's kind of what is the competition doing as well there? What, sorry, is the competition doing there as well? And what do you see kind of the market developing the next five years?
Yeah, great, great question. So reduced stature corn, we're very excited about this new technology. And we think that there's going to be just tremendous opportunity. It's not going to be something that is going to go to every corn acre in the U.S. However, there's going to be, I think, a nice market for this. And the benefits that growers are going to observe, I think, when we roll out the technology will be a yield advantage over time. But there's a couple other dimensions to this. So we'll be able to plant the crop a little bit more dense. And once we do that, farmers will be able to have a higher output per acre.
But the other benefit will be that what we call the canopy, because the crop won't grow as high, we'll have access to be able to put over-the-top fertilizer applications and crop protection to protect the crop a little bit better than we typically would. So there's, there's a lot here to that we like, but it is a new farming system. So it's not just a matter of changing out the seed. We're going to have to work with growers over multiple years to get them comfortable with the whole, whole new agronomic system. And we're going to have to help them retool how they think about growing corn. Now, with that said, the Corteva technology right now, we're very pleased with it. We are in field trials right now and things look very, very good.
The other thing I would say is we are actually working with two parallel processes. Traditionally bred reduced corn. We also have a gene-edited version so that when we get freedom to operate, we'll be able to come into the market relatively quickly with a gene-edited version, which we think we will be able to then take that performance to the next level. So what I'd say so far is no showstoppers. The program is developing very nicely. We like what we see in the field trials. I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity for a select group of farmers in the U.S.
Before I talk, ask you about Brevant, I ask you when I'd like to talk about biologicals. Okay. I mean, you have Stoller and you have Symborg, but there seems to be a significant amount of development and innovation going on out there in biologicals. You have this massive seed business that these could potentially be seed treatments. It's just another way of delivery. But just curious as to whether you see potentially more investments in, in biologicals, some of which have the ability to get you into, you know, nitrogen as, as ammonia, ammonia-producing bacteria. Is that an area of interest?
Yes. So, we really like the biologicals space. And the reason we like it is it's the fastest growing segment of the CP industry today. And we think by the time we get out to 2035, it'll be about a quarter of the market. So it's going to be very large and it's growing very quickly. And the other reason that we like it, so obviously with the two acquisitions we made, plus what we had in-house, we are now today one of the largest biologicals providers in the industry. But we also think we have some very unique capabilities, specifically around microbial engineering. So we've been working with microbials, for those that understand our Spinosyns franchise, for example, for over 20 years.
We've been able to use our science and capability to really drive the overall effectiveness of the microbials. That is a unique skill set that I think very few companies on the planet have. So you can imagine taking that capability with now the Stoller and the Symborg portfolio and taking the productivity and the effectiveness up even more. We think that there is a great combination here with a growth industry plus our capabilities to really take this product, these products around the world. Let me just give you an example. Today we sell biologicals in about 50 countries. So it actually is quite pervasive.
The challenge for us will be trying to get farmers that have never used it or have rarely used biologicals to build it into their complement of either traditional CP with traditional CP, not as a replacement, but as a complement or as a seed treatment. The market that we have the most experience with now is Brazil. The Brazilian farmers are very comfortable with biologicals. They've been using them for over 50 years. Why is that? It's because they have specific and unique disease and insect pressures that are now showing up, as I mentioned, in other parts of the world. We now have the understanding and the know-how from Brazil. We're going to target sort of the same sort of selling in Europe and then eventually here in the United States.
So we think we're just getting started with our biologicals investment, our capabilities, and we're starting to bring these products to other, other farmers around the world because honestly, they're needed.
Anyone jump in here? Question back here?
Can I get your latest thoughts on precision spraying and whether it has impacted your demand at all and whether it will in the future?
Yeah. So precision applications, they're really not new. They've been in the market for some time. I think the focus area for some farmers will be the precision application of broad acre non-selective herbicides. So a very specific part of the market. It's a big part of the market, but that's really where there seems to be some energy and activity around. So think about glyphosate or dicamba, as Steve mentioned, applications. What we're focused on is, and we don't think there's going to be sort of one answer for all farmers here. Precision application could work, but what we're really focused on is bringing that next generation of crop protection products that require very low usage rates. So we now have some herbicides that require sort of one sugar packet per hectare.
You can imagine then if a farmer can use their existing equipment because the precision application equipment is quite expensive, it's new. If they can use their existing equipment with this new type of chemistry that is now available from Corteva and other companies, that's another way to deal with the sort of driving of applying less on the acre. The other thing that it opens up is then drone application. If you can get the payloads down and still have the same effectiveness, it opens up a whole kind of data set on aerial application, which has a lot of benefits because you don't have the same impact with the soil. So our view on this is that there's going to be multiple tools to solve this issue and options for farmers are a good thing.
Precision could be one of them, but I think the new chemistries that we have that we're developing and that are in the market today I think are going to compete very nicely.
I'm sure we could keep going, but we've run out of time. So please join me in thanking Chuck and Dave.
Thank you.