BASF Agricultural Solutions: Innovation Empowers Global Agricultural Sustainable Development, Continue to Increase Investment in the Chinese Market

Editor’s Note: Multiple adverse impacts confront global agriculture, such as the growing population, extreme climate, geopolitical conflict, and energy crisis, which pose severe challenges to global food security. As a leading global agricultural technology company, in the face of the constantly rising new challenges, how does BASF establish its core competency? How will BASF plan the new product layout? How is BASF building up a new source of growth? How does BASF view the development potential of the Chinese market? With these questions, the author had the chance of an exclusive interview with Livio Tedeschi, President of BASF Agricultural Solutions.

Dr. Livio Tedeschi joined BASF in 2003 and has held several key positions in the company over the last 20 years. In April 2022, Livio was promoted to president of BASF Agricultural Solutions. Through this interview, at close range, the author could get into BASF’s long-lasting spirit of innovation, strong R&D strength, proactive agricultural industry layout, and sustainable practices.

Livio Tedeschi

President of BASF Agricultural Solutions

With a 100-year genetic inheritance of innovation legacy, BASF has been making persistent innovations in integrated solutions

As a 100-year-long standing global agrochemical industry leader, the spirit of innovation is embedded deep in the corporate culture of BASF, which provides the company with diverse business growth vitality to sustainably maintain its industry-leading position. Currently, BASF’s product portfolio comprises seeds and specifically selected plant traits, chemical and biological crop protection products, solutions for soil management, integrated pest management, and digital farming, while the company's businesses are still growing and continuously empowering the sustainable development of global agriculture. 

According to Livio, BASF focuses on essential crop systems, which are critical to the survival of mankind, targeting options for improvement and optimization of these key crops, as promotion and application of new technologies to these crops will contribute to yield increase and sustainable development in agricultural production. These major crops include soybean, corn, cotton, wheat, canola, sunflower, rice, fruits and vegetables.

For these crops, BASF commits itself to the development of integrated agricultural solutions and will continue its innovation in the development of seeds&traits, biological and chemical crop protection products as well as digital farming to give more options to farmers and combine technologies. 

In the future, BASF is prepared to provide much-needed solutions for farmers to overcome local and crop system-specific pest pressures, climate challenges, changing regulatory requirements, and rising consumer expectations. ″The future lies in the smart combination of seeds, crop protection products - chemical or biological - digital tools, and new approaches like carbon farming,″ says Livio.

Concerning seeds and traits, BASF has launched its herbicide-tolerant Provisia^® Rice crop systems, allowing growers to safely apply Provisia herbicide to control ALS-resistant grasses, red rice, volunteer rice, and other grasses. 

In terms of crop protection, BASF has released to the Chinese market its Revysol^® fungicide series (mefentrifluconazole), including Melyra^® , Tylora^® and Cevya^®, as well as the product Mibelya^® which will be released to the market in 2024. Revysol^®-based products will be launched within the next two years to control major diseases in rice, such as sheath blight and dirty panicles. These new formulations will be available to rice farmers in the Asian-Pacific region under the product names Cevya^®, Mibelya^®, and Revyrize^®. The herbicides launched by BASF can facilitate minimum tillage, with up to 10% fewer CO₂ emissions per ton of crop produced, where erosion is minimized, while more organic matter is built up in the soil. 

Concerning BioSolutions, BASF’s inoculants (living, naturally occurring bacteria) help farmers increase yield, quality, and resilience to volatile weather changes such as drought.

Speaking of innovation, which is most important in product development, Livio stresses, ″To me, the answer is to work on a full toolbox for the farmers that provide the best solutions from all areas of agriculture that benefit food security, the environment, and the climate.″ BASF gives farmers more options and combines technologies such as precision farming, precision fertilizing, CO₂ efficient crops with new breeding technologies such as CRISPR or modern sorts of natural breeding, and digital tools to optimize crop protection usage.

BASF continuously invests in its innovation pipeline. In 2022, BASF Agricultural Solutions spent around €940 million in research and development in the Agricultural Solutions segment, representing 40% of the total R&D spending of BASF Group. In the future, BASF will continue its substantial investment across the broad pipeline of agricultural technologies. 

Livio Tedeschi, President of BASF Agricultural Solutions and Simone Barg, Senior Vice-President of BASF Agricultural Solutions Asia-Pacific visited the Shouguang vegetable base located in Shandong province, China

To highlight seed and trait development, BASF is dedicated to providing differentiated products and services

As a ″rising star″ in seed and trait development, BASF’s business in this field has been growing strongly, with annual sales of €1.872 billion (18%) in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 14%. Livio says that in seed and trait, BASF’s innovation strategy lies in critical crops and key markets, where centralized resources are committed to providing differentiated products and services. For example, in China, key innovations are serving key crops.

BASF’s Vegetable Seeds Business Unit (Nunhems) has collaborated with value chains and R&D partners worldwide to promote breeding development and innovation. In China, BASF not only introduces new varieties, but also provides customized solutions via breeding to cultivate varieties fit for the Chinese market. 

In the coming years, BASF is prepared to roll out more and more of its traits, which have enormous market potential. Meanwhile, BASF will provide country-specific and crop-specific products and services, covering seeds, innovative technologies, and digital solutions. For a specific crop, BASF invests in innovation and development of all technologies related to that crop and will establish a strong business relationship with local partners. In a word, BASF commits itself to innovation and localized business operations and will continue its effort on product development for key countries and critical crops to form BASF’s differentiated business advantage.

Biologicals combining with conventional crop protections to provide integrated solutions

Biologicals have become one of the fastest-growing product categories in agricultural sector. According to the data, global biologicals sales in 2023 were approximately $14.6 billion. They are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.8% to reach sales of $27.9 billion by 2028. Biologicals have become an indispensable and essential driver in promoting sustainable agricultural development.

″We see biological solutions as natural partners to conventional solutions in crop protection because the greatest potential lies in the complementary use of both. While biological solutions are an increasingly valuable part of integrated pest management programs, chemical solutions will continue to be indispensable in conventional agriculture,″ Livio says.

BASF is expanding its biological business in two ways: On the one hand, through the integration of the crop system of its own and utilization of biotechnology to improve the activity and product value of chemicals, and on the other hand, by collaborating with partners of cooperation to participate in the creation of new biological substances and development of the delivery technologies for biological product application. These are all the essential strategic cornerstones of BASF, which strives to integrate the value of biologicals with other innovative technologies to provide integrated crop solutions.

BASF’s biological business has been developing firmly and steadily, with the product line covering biofungicides, bioinsecticides, bionematicides, and inoculants, among which the representational products include the novel fungicide Serifel ^® and the biological seed treatment Integral^® Pro for oilseed rape. In October 2023, BASF invested a high double-digit million euro amount in a new fermentation plant for biological and biotechnology-based crop protection products at its Ludwigshafen site to strengthen the portfolio of biological and biotechnology-based crop protection products, thus enhancing the company’s comprehensive strength in biological business.

Digital farming incorporated in company value chain, accelerating agricultural transformation and upgrading as well as sustainable development

After years of exploration, practice, application, and development, digital farming has ushered in an evolution. While improving agricultural production efficiency and product quality, digital farming is accelerating the agricultural transformation and upgrading as well as sustainable development.

According to Livio, BASF’s digital solution xarvio^® FIELD MANAGER, makes a critical contribution to the transition to more sustainable agriculture. Users across 100 countries are now using its related products. In addition, BASF will continue its investment in the Bosch BASF Smart Farming in support of the Smart Spray development program. The decision-making quality of xarvio^® FIELD MANAGER is continuously improving to achieve sustainable rice production. To support more efficient use of pesticides, BASF is updating the platform with new insect pest models expected to be available by 2025; it will also enhance its disease models to support more precise fungicide timing, dosing, and product selection recommendations. Through collaboration with ZEN-NOH and owing to the accurate and continuously improving model-based insights, xarvio has evolved into the de facto standard tool for crop protection.

As an agricultural company, BASF is committed to promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030. To achieve agricultural sustainability and fulfill pressing societal needs, BASF will help farmers reduce CO₂ emissions per ton of crop by 30%, annually increase sales share of solutions with substantial sustainability contribution by 7%, and apply digital technologies to more than 400 million hectares of farmland. Meanwhile, BASF will ensure the safe use of BASF’s products with the proper stewardship.

To create a new agro ecosystem to continuously expand Chinese market

″China is a key market for BASF, and the latter sees the opportunities to not only support China’s national food security quests, but also its consumer demands for quality. BASF aims to do it by introducing Ag Innovations, including crop protection, seeds and traits, and vegetable seeds to ensure the agriculture industry produces what is needed for consumer demands,″ says Livio. In addition, BASF is prepared to partner with value chains to build a new agricultural ecosystem in China to speed up the transformation, upgrading, and sustainable development of Chinese agriculture. 

Since 2019, BASF has launched three Active Ingredients with Inscalis^® (Afidopyropen), Revysol^® (mefentrifluconazole) and Cimegra^® (broflanilide), which have superior sustainable profiles, are regarded as safe, green and efficient products. The business success of these products is fueled by farmers’ positive reactions to the product’s efficacy. In 2024, BASF is prepared to launch many products in the Chinese market, including Mibelya^® of the Revysol^® family, the new seed solution, and the novel rodenticide. Moreover, BASF has developed a series of diverse crop solutions that could meet the different needs of Chinese growers, like the solutions for rice, wheat, corn, banana, grapes, and potatoes.

BASF not only provides technical solution, but also co-creates added value via broad cooperation with industry chain players. In June 2020, BASF and Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Co., Ltd formed a partnership to co-develop and commercialize a new non-GMO (that is Provisia) rice production system designed to boost agricultural productivity for farmers in China.

In light of the enormous potential of Chinese agriculture, BASF firmly believes that the way forward in agriculture in China is to find the right balance for success – for farmers, agriculture and future generations. Over the coming years, China’s economy driven by the growing middle class‘ needs will result in the agricultural-food system undergoing an accelerated transformation in order to provide access to enough healthy and affordable food for its population. With our offer of global products, technologies and services, we want to transform agriculture for the better, and, at the same time mitigate its impact on our planet so that future generations can flourish and we can achieve a more sustainable food system. 

This article will be published in AgroPages' upcoming 'Annual Review 2023' magazine.

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