Bayer Invests in Crop Science Division
Bayer continues to invest in its Crop Science division to deliver new solutions for sustainable agriculture despite the current difficult business environment.
"We are very confident about the long-term growth potential of the agricultural market and are not only continuing to invest in innovation, but have also earmarked EUR2.5bn for capital expenditure from 2017 to 2020," said Liam Condon, member of the Bayer Board of Management and head of the Crop Science Division, at the company’s "Future of Farming Dialog 2016" in Leverkusen, Germany. "The combination of over EUR1bn per annum investments in R&D combined with additional infrastructure investments will help ensure a continuous innovative product pipeline that can meet the challenging needs of growers around the world."
At the event, the future of agriculture was discussed from all angles, with diverse experts covering a wide range of topics from the use of satellite technology to smallholder support to integrated solutions to solve key agricultural challenges.
Condon also outlined the current Crop Science R&D pipeline with products to be launched from 2015 to 2020, highlighting a combined peak sales potential of more than EUR5bn. Beyond 2020, the R&D organization is working with more than 20 R&D targets in chemical crop protection, six targets for biological crop protection and eight targets for traits. In addition, the breeding programs include nine field crop targets in late development and research and 27 vegetable targets.
He also confirmed the commitment to R&D: "With about 10% of sales going into R&D our investment into innovation remains at an industry leading level in the agricultural industry. Irrespective of the volatility of the agricultural cycle, we need to take the long-term approach to innovation because in our highly regulated industry it takes us on average about 10 years to develop new products."
Condon also addressed the company’s efforts in the emerging field of Digital Farming. The company has committed to investing at least EUR200m in Digital Farming between 2015 and 2020 and is currently selling and testing Digital Farming products in 10 countries, with the goal to rapidly expand further and develop a best in class crop protection digital support system.
