October 21, 2013
Bayer CropScience boosts investment to develop integrated crop solutions
In order to best serve growers'' needs, Bayer CropScience is investing heavily to develop integrated crop solutions.
"Offering innovative tools from improved seeds through to post-harvest treatment, we address key challenges in modern agriculture and promote ways for a sustainable intensification of farming," said Ashish Malik, Vice President of Global Marketing Biologics at Bayer CropScience at the Eight Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting (ABIM) in Basel, Switzerland.
"Products based on biological modes of action for protection of plants against fungi, insect pests and nematodes complement our integrated offer and will help us meet customer needs." Together with seeds, traits, chemicals, services and Product Stewardship measures, biologicals constitute
BayerCropScience''s response to customer demand for higher yields, higher quality of harvested produce and new tools for improved resistance management.
The global demand for biological crop protection solutions is growing. Bayer CropScience recognised the needs of its customers and began to step up its research into biologicals in 2009. As the first result, Poncho™/Votivo™, introduced in the US on
corn seed for the 2011 growing season and today also available for cotton and soy, combines a well-established seed-applied chemical
insecticide with a biological mode of action against nematodes, consistently providing higher crop yields. "Targeted crop protection combining chemicals and biologicals is a new way to serve sustainable agriculture in meeting current and future challenges," Ashish Malik points out. The UN estimates global
food production needs to increase by some 70% by 2050 and biologicals can contribute to reaching this goal.
Recent strategic acquisitions have further strengthened the company''s portfolio of integrated crop solutions. "Integrated crop solutions that include biologicals give growers new options to manage quality requirements of the food value chain," said Peter Lüth, Managing Director of Prophyta, a Bayer CropScience company developing and producing biologicals. Another important benefit of biologicals is that they have short pre-harvest and re-entry intervals and thus provide high flexibility on application timing for the grower. Further, when used in combination or rotation with chemicals, biologicals provide new tools in resistance management.
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. It is one of the world''s leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 20,800 and is represented in more than 120 countries.