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Bayer's Raphael Dumain on Regen Ag Strategy, Partnerships & Outlook

Raphael Dumain, Global Lead of External Innovation & Partnerships, at Bayer Crop Science will be speaking at the World Agri-Tech Middle East, Africa and South Asia Summit on December 9-10.

Ahead of this, he discusses Bayer's definition for regenerative agriculture, and driving impact through strategy and partnerships.

How does Bayer Crop Science define regenerative agriculture, and what role does it play in the company’s broader R&D strategy for addressing global food security and sustainability challenges?

For Bayer, regenerative agriculture is an outcome-based production model. Improving soil health is a key part and often foundational to it, which leads to increased resilience. Other key aspects include mitigation of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions reductions and increased carbon removals, maintaining, preserving or restoring on-farm biodiversity, conserving water resources through improved water retention and decreases in water run-off, and improving the social and economic well-being of farmers and communities. To this end, we combine our innovations in seeds & traits, crop protection and digital technologies to deliver a holistic set of solutions, tailored to each individual farm and its specific conditions. Building on our long-term belief in systems approaches, we are now intentionally thinking about how they can not only bring increased productivity to tackle food security and economic benefit to the farmer, but how they can have tangible and quantifiable environmental benefits in the field. All while keeping the realities of the farmer at the forefront, and this all starts with our research and development processes. To be very clear: if a new solution within our pipeline does not bring environmental or sustainability benefits, we don’t pursue it further.

What specific contributions have Bayer's external innovation and partnerships made to advancing regenerative agriculture, and how do you identify the right collaborators to drive impact in this space?

The most complex challenges—like biodiversity loss, climate change, and food security —cannot be solved alone. They require partnerships able to build upon the agricultural solutions that are already working, and to find new ones. At Bayer, we have leading research and development capabilities in plant breeding, biotechnology, chemistry, and data science, allowing us to deliver tailored solutions to farmers faster than ever before. We collaborate with external partners large and small so we can pursue progress for farmers, consumers, and our planet. When it comes to finding new solutions for the future of farming, we seek inspiration from the challenges our grower customers face as well as from the significant environmental challenges facing our planet, and we know that we need to take advantage of the great science that happens inside – and outside. Our Open Innovation strategy enables us to work across the ecosystem of innovators and join forces with partners of all sizes – from start-ups and scale-ups to academic institutions and established companies – to unlock innovation breakthroughs from discovery to development. Not only does this fuel fundamental shifts in thinking, but it also supports the agriculture of today while helping to shape the agriculture of tomorrow. One example is our collaboration with the US-based food and agtech startup Pairwise. We partner with Pairwise on their innovative leafy greens, which deliver a new, great-tasting salad option with high nutrition value. This new licensing agreement includes commercialization rights for the varieties developed by Pairwise and rights to develop new varieties, this creates value beyond just selling a product, as it also comes with rights to use the knowledge, intellectual property, and technology going forward. In addition, we partner with Pairwise to further develop our PRECEON™ Smart Corn System that deploys a full toolbox of solutions to benefit growers including a gene editing approach in partnership with the startup. The system combines the game-changing benefits of Short Stature Corn with digital insights from our FieldView™ platform, tailored practices, crop protection innovations and support to enable farmers to get the best out of their hybrids. Our collaboration is focused on optimizing and enhancing gene-edited short-stature corn for future use.

When forming partnerships in regenerative agriculture, what metrics or outcomes are most critical to determine success, and how do you ensure mutual alignment with collaborators?

For our Planet, Regenerative agriculture is about producing more while restoring more. Thus, the most important outcomes are the reduction of CO2 emissions, the sequestering of CO2 in the soil, the improvement of soil health and – at the same time – more yield. For our partners and Bayer, metrics can be downstream monetization of the sustainability coming from programs and portfolio, and this can also be tangible value for investors and ratings agencies. For the farmers, partnerships with industry players can help to develop practices being based on scientific demonstration that can have value proposition at farm level. This can also be seizing the opportunity to share the risks and the benefits. We also have partnerships with organizations, like Gates Ag One, supporting development of crop innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. There are societal benefits to support smallholders.

What emerging technologies or approaches in regenerative agriculture do you believe hold the most potential, and how is Bayer positioning itself to lead or adapt to these advancements?

As described earlier, in the past we have looked at our solutions as individual pillars – seeds & traits, crop protection and digital technology. But the challenge of modern agriculture underscores the need for us to look at all three not as distinct offerings but as part of one holistic system solution. By bringing together these technology platforms, which Bayer uniquely has under one roof, we aim to deliver agriculture solutions that – when combined to a whole system – have the potential to increase agricultural yields, create commercial value for farmers and generate positive outcomes for nature. One example is CoverCress which is a low-input winter oilseed cover crop that shows potential to help store carbon in the soil, while improving soil health by increasing organic matter content and contributing to healthy field microbiomes. CoverCress will provide growers a new option for a lucrative cash cover crop that also offers potential sustainability benefits. The oil from CoverCress is intended for use as a new ultra-low carbon intensity fuel feedstock with the goal of providing new options for diesel and jet fuel producers working to reduce their carbon footprint. Also, digital precision farming is a key enabler in finding the optimal solution for each farming system. We use data-driven insights from sensors and other digital field technologies to tailor the right solution to the specific conditions of each individual farm. This allows farmers to make informed decisions about where and when to apply nutrients, crop protection and water on their land, which means they not only grow more crops with fewer resources and less environmental impact, but also improve the profitability of each acre. For example, we have a partnership with Rantizo company: Precision aerial pesticide applications via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) affords to focus the application of the right amount to the right plant allowing an overall reduction in pesticide applications and of carbon emissions compared to traditional sprayers. It also reduces soil compaction.

Raphael will be joining senior leaders from Silal, Abu Dhabi Food Hub, Investment Corporation of Dubai, and FAIRR Institute on the summit's opening session 'Advancing Climate-Resilient Food Systems: Bolstering Food Security and Increasing Domestic Production'. Book your place at the summit to join the summit audience and connect 1-1 with all speakers, delegates and partners.