On Oct. 17, Bayer hosted an event called the Fields of Opportunity, where they put a spotlight on the company’s solutions to increase sustainable food production. But one key aspect was made known by Rodrigo Santos: there needs to be a new approach to agriculture and more collaboration to combat hunger and protect the environment. The event was held on the Bayer ForwardFarm in Rommerskirchen, Germany.
“The pressure on food systems and on the environment is greater than ever before which is leading to an increase in global hunger,” Santos, member of the board of management of Bayer AG and president of the company’s Crop Science Division, said in a release. “We need to accelerate the transformation of agriculture and implement solutions that are more sustainable and more productive at the same time. Re-thinking global food supply and intensifying collaboration with stakeholders on all levels is key to benefiting farmers, people, and the planet. To this end Bayer supports the combination of innovative products and digital technologies with carbon farming, low-till, cover crops and biodiversity protection.”
The event focused on the following solutions in Bayer’s pipeline:
Hybrid Wheat. Bayer looks to transform wheat production by the end of the decade with new hybrid wheat varieties.
“Advancements in genomic tools are enabling the development of hybrid wheat at competitive costs,” says the release. “The new crop is expected to provide higher yield and yield stability, with the potential fit on a significant portion of the around 555 million acres of wheat grown globally.”
Carbon Farming. Bayer demonstrated how low-till farming and cover crops could improve soil health and reduce erosion. In addition, Bayer talked about its Carbon Initiative, which opens up new revenue generation to farmers in the form of carbon credits.
Crop Protection. Bayer is currently working to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture — in the realm of crop protection, that means focusing on digitally enabled precision application and new crop protection products with “more favorable environmental profiles,” including biological crop protection.
The company also discussed the effects digital agriculture is having on biodiversity and called for the industry to foster more biodiversity. Through these topics, Bayer believes they can contribute to the transformation of agriculture.
“In the future, farmers will measure the success of their farms as much by the terabytes of data captured from their fields or the tons of CO2 sequestered, as by the yield produced,” said Santos.
