Bayer: Joining forces to overcome the challenges of agriculture

By Guillermo Devereux, responsible for the Agricultural Policies & Public Interest area of Bayer in Latin America.

With an innovative concept, Bayer reinforces its commitment to sustainable agriculture by building value relationships in the agricultural chain that benefit all its members. There are already more than 524 Food Chain Partnership initiatives in more than 40 countries, which are bringing better solutions for 76 different crops.

Feeding a world population in constant growth. Here is one of the main challenges of humanity for the future and also for the present. Committed to this issue, the agricultural sector has been looking for solutions to overcome this and other major challenges that impact food production such as climate change, the scarcity of natural resources, the increase of pests and the reduction of land available for growing crops.

As an integral part of the sector, representing the world's leading industry in agriculture, we at Bayer seek to innovate in order to produce food in a sufficient, safe and responsible manner. Do you know the motto, which states that "together we are stronger and can go further"? Well, that is how our concept of Food Chain Partnership came about, that is, the sum of forces that adds up different expertise to a farm.

We have created an innovative business model in which producers, traders, processors, exporters, importers and retailers work together in integrated crop solutions based on the principles of sustainable agriculture. The idea is to connect the members along the food chain so that everyone benefits from the projects of the Food Chain Partnership program in terms of safety, quality and productivity.

Currently, there are already more than 500 initiatives within the concept worldwide. Here in Latin America, a very strategic region with important countries providing food for the planet, we help the different actors of agribusiness to promote an increasingly sustainable agriculture with the aim of offering safe food to the population, once it is the end consumer who benefits from that process most.

An example of that is the work developed in the Dominican Republic, where water scarcity and high temperatures are a constant problem. We are offering consultancy and technical appointments, showing different ways to manage water resources and land. This close participation allowed us to create very lasting relationships, such as the association we signed with producer Américo Rodríguez, head of a 300-hectare farm dedicated to the production of bananas and rice.

In all, we already have accumulated more than ten years of a successful history of evolution in the agricultural chain, with about 70 program managers working in more than 40 countries focused on different crops. In addition to the commitment to development and adapted solutions for regions and countries, we offer knowledge in environmental protection and safety. Therefore, we base Stewardship measures to guarantee the integrity of products, the protection of people and the preservation of the planet. We invest in in good agricultural practices training in order to promote and sign new collaboration agreements in our platform, thus strengthening the global agriculture.

In this battle, we have producers around the world following up with the transformations that seemed unimaginable in agriculture. The technological advance, the rise of diseases and plagues never before known, climate change and its implications on farms... the field is always changing! In the midst of this evolving scenario, I am sure that we are on the right track, adding efforts to maintain a sustainable performance in the field.

It is worth remembering that by 2050, we will be almost nine billion people in the world, according to data from the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture. I believe that Food Chain will place us very much in line with that near future. We are now directing our actions to meet the needs of consumers for nutritious and varied food, with good prices.

The message transmitted through our project is very transparent: consumers can be sure that the food they are buying has been produced in a sustainable manner. All members along the agricultural chain have done everything possible to safeguard the welfare of future generations.