Life sciences company Bayer has announced its Crop Science Division will capitalise on opportunities in regenerative agriculture to grow in adjacent markets, in addition to its core business of seeds, traits, crop protection and digital.
At its 2023 Innovation Summit, the company identified growth potential in segments like crop fertility, biologicals, biofuels, carbon farming, precision application services as well as digital platforms and marketplaces.
Overall, the company expects to access more than €100 billion (approx. £859 million) in these adjacent markets annually, in effect doubling the division’s potential market which stands at more than €100 billion for the core portfolio alone.
By the middle of the next decade, Bayer envisions shaping regenerative agriculture on more than 400 million acres.
Rodrigo Santos, president of Bayer’s Crop Science Division and member of the board of Bayer AG said: “We are envisioning an even broader role in agriculture. With the most powerful innovation engine in the industry and leading market positions, Bayer is uniquely set to provide the solutions that farmers need in light of food security and climate change.
“We define regenerative agriculture as increasing food production, farm incomes and resilience in a changing climate while renewing nature.
“Our portfolio will deliver future innovations with regenerative agriculture at the core, and we will explore new market opportunities to further allow farmers to combine productivity, profitability, and sustainability benefits.”
Regenerative agriculture
According to Bayer, farmers around the globe can expect access to industry-leading innovations that not only deliver yield improvements, but which can also regenerate soil and minimise the impact of farming on the climate and broader environment – tailored to the different crops.
On the farm of the future, the terabytes of data captured from the field as well as the tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestered, will be as important to the farmer as the yield that each field produces, the company has said.
Going forward, Bayer said it will focus its investment on solutions that deliver important pillars of regenerative agriculture.
This includes: Improved productivity; social and economic well-being of farmers and communities; conservation of water; mitigation of climate change; improved soil health; as well as preservation and restoration of biodiversity.
The company is investing in its pipeline to accelerate the delivery of solutions that growers need.
Late-stage transformative technologies are being combined with the annual refresh of the global seed portfolio and the addition of hundreds of new product registrations and formulations every year.
Projects
In 2022, 15 projects advanced, including new crop protection active ingredients, new seed traits and digital models.
Bayer refreshed its seed portfolio with 500 new hybrid and variety deployments and its crop protection portfolio with 10 new formulation launches and more than 250 new registrations.
The R&D investment of €2.6 billion (approx. £2.23 billion) , before special items, in 2022 continues to advance a pipeline with an estimated peak sales potential of more than €30 billion (approx. £26 billion), half of which are incremental to the existing base, according to Bayer.
Dr. Robert Reiter, head of R&D at Bayer’s Crop Science Division said: “A bold vision takes a bold investment. It takes all five of our innovation platforms – breeding, biotechnology, chemistry, biologicals and data science – to power this pipeline.
But it is far more than these platforms alone. It is the convergence of the innovations that allows us to generate system solutions to solve our most pressing challenges.
“Farmers need the best genetics with best-in-class traits; they need data-driven planting scripts to know when and where to plant those crops.
“And they need lower impact small-molecule crop protection paired with late-season biological solutions and precision applications to sustainably protect those crops.”
Bayer said it is advancing existing breeding technologies while also developing the next generation of tools like gene-editing to create designer seeds for growers in crops like corn, soya beans, cotton and vegetables.
The precision breeding programme helps to improve both yield and efficiency for farmers, using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to develop the right seeds for the right conditions.
The company is also expanding its expertise into new spaces, like the Preceon Smart Corn System, offering reduced plant height which brings multiple benefits to the farmer.
Bayer
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition.
Its products and services are aimed at helping people and the planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population.
In fiscal, the group employed around 101,000 people and had sales of €50.7 billion (approx. £43.6 billion). R&D expenses before special items amounted to €6.2 billion (approx. £5.3 billion).
