Bayer CropScience committed to Chinese vegetable safety

Bayer CropScience signed strategic agreement with Gu’an Shunzhai Vegetable-planting Cooperative, located in Hebei province, on Oct 9, 2014 regarding the agreement of “Key Account (KA) project on High Quality Vegetable Production”. Recently, AgroPages was invited to visit the Shunzhai Cooperative to experience the changes that Bayer CropScience has brought to this cooperative.

Zhang Shunzhai, Director of Shunzhai Cooperative, told the visitors that the he was impressed by Bayer's suggestion to prevent plant diseases in the first place, rather than simply treating them when it was often too late. “We used to apply conventional planting experience, which means we only use agrochemicals when we see diseases occuring. However, this always leads to massive use of agrochemicals and the efficacy is still uncertain. Bayer provides us an integrated solution including vegetable seeds, crop protection, advanced practices.” Zhang said, “This not only enhanced plant health but also is more cost-effective. We are very satisfied with this scientific solution that Bayer brings to us. Our vegetables meet the higher quality and safety standards, which enables us to broaden our market.”

"It's a great honor that Shunzhai Cooperative became Bayer's first partner in China within the key account project," said Zhang.

“Bayer is committed to bring products of world-class safety standards to Chinese farmers. The collaboration with Shunzhai Cooperative is a significant step to contribute to the sustainable agriculture.” said Rob Hulme, country head of Bayer Crop-Science Greater China.



Kong Xianyang, Vegetable KA manager from Bayer CropScience, stated that the largest difficulty in this collaboration is to change the perception of cooperative members, “through experiencing the practices of the project, cooperative members are now convinced that it is a much better choice to apply agrochemicals before you actually see the diseases. This could reduce overall usage of chemicals and produce higher quality vegetables.”



The cooperative was set up in April 2007 by a couple of farmers including Zhang and today it covers 1,000 hectares and produces 50,000 tons of vegetables each year.