In the 1990s, the competition in international glyphosate industry was very intense and the price of glyphosate kept dropping. The lowest price of glyphosate fell to USD2,900/t and many domestic glyphosate producers adopting the AEA route could not maintain their normal production. Meanwhile, some research institutes and producers turned their attention to research and development of the IDA pathway. As they did not have the technology to produce IDAN from HCN, Chinese producers developed another way to produce IDA and glyphosate independently in 1997, namely the DEA route, although this route was developed by Monsanto and Syngenta years before.

The quality of glyphosate made by the DEA route is quite good, it is reported that it's relatively easy to register the glyphosate technical made by this route in overseas countries. However, as the production cost of the DEA route has no competitive advantage compared with other two routes, the number of production lines adopting the DEA route has shown a decreasing trend during the past few years.