Graham Jenner is Bayer CropScience's campaign manager for horticulture, based at the company's UK HQ in Hauxton, Cambridgeshire. He says: “We are still in the throes of piecing together the two companies ñ taking the respective strengths of both and creating one stronger organisation. We are still working to get the best out of the combination. It will take time, but it is a tremendous opportunity and we have already made good progress.
“The companies had very different backgrounds. Bayer was a traditional company, with its headquarters in Germany, and a high proportion of its employees have 30 years or more experience. Aventis had synthesised from a number of other companies, around 20 in all, during its history.
“We have already slimmed down in the UK. We have also quickly disseminated which functions each company could offer the other. One of the strengths that Aventis had, which Bayer did not, was its interface with the food industry.
“Bayer had never been so up-front in its dealings with the food chain and, despite beginning to approach the issue, hadn't made many in-roads. Bayer CropScience now has an entire area devoted to business stewardship, which in horticulture is exactly where the business needs to go.”
The company, Jenner adds, has recognised the highly specialised nature of the horticulture industry and committed a dedicated team to the job. “There is a high level of expertise needed in horticulture,” he says. “To offer quality produce you need a good grower, distributor and manufacturer, all dedicated and working together.”
Stephen Humphreys is part of the business stewardship team, which has been established to enhance relationships and understanding between Bayer and the supply chain. He says: “It is a concept we are looking to expand and we are very excited about it. We think this puts us ahead of our competitors. We now have a clear thought process and the team has representation at board level through Chris Kyndt, so it has the clout to get things done.”
The team has as part of its remit the role of communicating with the food chain on issues such as crop protection, GMOs, environmental sustainability and Bayer CropScience's products. Humphreys represents the crop science industry on the Fresh Produce Consortium and Assured Produce panels, and his colleague Patrick Mitton chairs a working group at Institute of Grocery Distribution. “We are obviously in the business to sell our products,” says Humphreys, “but it is vital as part of that process that we can give our clients and other companies the right level of technical information and establish an on-going dialogue to improve their use of crop science and understanding of our industry.”
Jenner says that Bayer has significant growth aspirations within the horticulture sector. He estimates that the company has around 20 per cent of the market in the UK, and hopes to see that climb to 23-25 per cent by 2005. “This will be achieved both through the increased sales of existing products and introduction of new products. We aim to strengthen our direct relationships with distributors, but also retain the status quo with regards to third-party distributors. They are all highly specialised and have all the expertise we require to support our products in the market,” he says.
“It is also important that we develop and co-ordinate co-operation with the key influencers in the UK market. The horticulture food chain is so much further down that line than agriculture, recognising that greater control was needed on everything that was sprayed on produce, as the majority will end up in a supermarket. We are very interested in talking to anyone who is involved in setting up crop protocols, with the major retailers, with processors and crop associations.”
As a multi-national organisation, Bayer CropScience also makes good use of the opportunity to pool resources. For instance, research data from the Benelux countries ñ where growing conditions are similar to the UK ñ has been accepted by the Pesticides Safety Directorate in this country, and regular contact and knowledge transfer have reduced duplication and costly research requirements. These benefits eventually get passed down to the end customer. “When it comes to glasshouse crops,” says Jenner, “it doesn't really matter whether trials are done in Japan as long as the temperatures and production and environment are similar.”
Other key aspects of the company's “holistic approach”, says Jenner, are its long-term commitment to research and development, which creates a dynamic pipeline of products, and an equally solid dedication to the needs of the fruit and wider horticulture industries.
Crop protection product development certainly needs a committed strategy. The likelihood of producing a commercially successful compound was 1:46,000 in the 1990s and is likely to fall further in this decade. To embark on an exhaustive process that takes on average four years of research and another four of development takes nerves of steel, and strong financial backing.
Existing products such as botrytis fungicides Elvaron Multi and Teldor in the soft-fruit market and Calypso, an insecticide for top fruit are being enhanced and updated. Bayer CropScience also supplies products for the stone fruit, bulb, ornamental, vegetable and potato sectors and expects to launch a new whitefly and spider mite control chemical class in 2004, with the international name of Oberon.
While the product pipeline continues to churn out new and improved offerings, the stewardship team continues to pursue its goal, becoming a leading influencer in the food chain and environmental stewardship. Humphreys highlights four areas as his major drivers.
• “Promoting safe use of our products has to be the number-one priority. It is crucial that we can illustrate that there is no adverse environmental or residue impact. Everyone wants to know the residue profile ñ in soft fruit for instance, the consensus is that the retailer wants product of a similar quality, with a suitable shelf-life, but with minimal residues. Part of our role as a company is to work towards that.
• “We need to defend [crop protection] products in food and environmental arenas by talking to the major parties involved.
• “We are also promoting the roles and benefits of crop protection products...
• “... and influencing the debate on sustainable agriculture. External stakeholders are key to this. It is no good us saying within this industry ëthis is what we think' if it doesn't correlate at all with the views of external stakeholders. There has to be a balance. This is particularly a UK-driven initiative, but we expect it to become more relevant in other countries.”
Bayer CropScience is active, not just as an individual entity but as part of the crop protection industry lobby, in the Voluntary Initiative defence against the pesticide tax. A programme of measures has been introduced to minimise the environmental impact of pesticides, which has been agreed with the government as a possible alternative to a £125 million a year tax on pesticide usage (equivalent to £25 an acre in the UK).
“Crop-protection and related industries are working together with farmers and are committed to delivering an improvement [in reducing the environmental impact of pesticide use],” say Humphreys. “We are particularly focusing on the protection of water sources and creation of richer biodiversity on farmland. We have run a training and communication programme, with operator roadshows and e-learning packages and also taken an active part in research into biobeds and the Link programme for sustainable agriculture.”
Bayer CropScience tags itself “your partner for growth” and has recognised the importance of its wider-involvement in defining the post-sale impact of its products on customers and consumers alike. The recent cranking up of the maximum residue levels issue is an illustration that all levels of the food chain should reciprocate this interest.
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