Bayer's Strategies to Increase Biologicals Adoption

The global agricultural sector faces an increasing demand for sustainable development, presenting unprecedented opportunities for the biological agri-input market. 

However, biologicals companies are challenged to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace to expand the adoption of their bio-solutions. 

In this interview, Ralf Glaubitz, Head of Crop Protection Team Fungicides, Biologics and Fruits & Vegetables at Bayer CropScience, will discuss how to differentiate products, train sales teams, and provide services for the farmers etc., offering valuable experience to the companies in the industry to increase biologicals adoption.

Could you give us an overall background of Bayer, biologicals, and your partnership platform?

Bayer is an enthusiastic supporter of, and investor in, biological solutions. We recognize that they are one of the fastest-growing and most exciting technologies in the agricultural toolbox – not only for their performance and sustainable profile, but for their potential as part of integrated packages combining many different technologies, overall giving farmers access to more ways to protect and nurture their crops.

We recognize that, as a leading agricultural input provider and a significant R&D investor, we have a responsibility to drive the next generation of biologicals forward. At the same time, we can’t do this alone in a market characterized by many players, from smaller companies innovating with a start-up mindset, through to "Big Ag" businesses. 

This is why we established our open innovation for biologicals, wherein we take promising candidates established by our partners and pair them with our development and commercialization engine. That way, the new biologicals can reach the market or expand their reach with greater success, and our partners can benefit. Rather than ‘going it alone’ in the biologicals space, we strive to be the industry’s partner of choice. We count a number of cutting-edge innovators and value chain actors among our partners. 

How do you differentiate your product offerings from competitors in the biologicals’ markets?

As a leading global agricultural company, we can bring exceptional product development, commercialization and stewardship capacities to biologicals. Leveraging our extensive testing and quality control operation, we are able to comprehensively confirm the performance of every biological solution we market, before we offer it to any customer. This not just means testing what the active ingredient actually does: it means what needs it fulfills and how it handles at every stage from manufacture through to the user in the field (including factors such as product handling, shelf life and compatibility with other solutions).

We apply exceptionally high standards to our biologicals, just as we do with everything we offer, and we further support this by delivering comprehensive advice on product management to our customers – all as part of a rigorous top-down approach to safety and sustainability. 

On top of this, what truly sets us apart from every other company is our commitment to offering biologicals in integrated packages, not just as standalone solutions. We have an unmatched multidisciplinary portfolio across seeds and traits, synthetic crop protection, biologicals and digital tools, and we are increasingly focused on bringing this portfolio together to create full solutions that address farmers’ challenges with disease or pest pressure as well as biostimulation – smartly, flexibly and comprehensively. 

In short: we strive to offer not just biologicals, but full systems that incorporate biologicals as an additional source of value for the grower, and get the most out of every technology.

What training do you provide your sales teams to effectively sell biologicals products?

We actively offer training with a global approach tailored to local needs. Across all regions, our aim is to go beyond mere lists of features and give a holistic understanding of the solution.

It starts with a deeper dive into the technical aspects of how biologicals work, so sales teams can completely understand how they act in soil and plants. This includes beneficial side effects (e.g. crop stimulation) as well as a product’s core protective mode of action. With a more complete understanding, sales colleagues can better position and advise on the use of biological solutions so that the full potential can be retrieved by the grower.

As well as the technical aspects, we cover storytelling and positioning – such as, how to address objections about efficacy, and how to accurately and engagingly talk about the integrated solutions that we offer biologicals as part of. So, we aren’t just listing technical specifications, but giving an in-depth, honest and inspiring picture of what biologicals do for growers and crops.

What improvements have you made in your service or education for the farmers over the past years?

In recent years, as knowledge and interest in biologicals has rapidly increased, we have learned a lot about how to talk about them to farmers. 

In brief, our most important learning has been: If you just try to position a biological like a conventional chemical product, you will probably fail, and end up with a disappointed customer. 

Biologicals should not be assessed on a linear scale where only the efficacy value against pests or diseases is considered. In fact, we should be honest and say that some biologicals do not have quite the same efficacy as a comparable chemical solution. However, they will have other advantages in different respects – such as positive impacts for soil health or crop nutrient uptake.

So, we really need to bring across this multidimensional evaluation when we talk about biologicals to farmers. Again, this leads us to the topic of integrated solutions. We have done a lot of fine-tuning of what goes into our integrated solution packages – and also how to effectively communicate their value to growers, support them with the right information on how to use them, and ensure that the grower remains in control and is confident of getting the right outcomes.

Can you share any successful cases where growers have seen significant benefits from using your biological crop solutions?

One strong example is the expansion of our biological fungicide Serenade ASO into different crops, geographies and use cases. Serenade ASO is already one of our biggest-selling biological solutions for foliar application, mainly applied in fruits and vegetables. When consulting farmers and distributors, we found that a lot of it was actually being applied in a different way: into the soil, especially in potato (where it has been shown, beside decreasing disease pressure, to have a biostimulation effect).

To more closely meet farmers’ needs, we worked on developing a version of Serenade that was optimized for soil-applied use, with higher spore content and an optimized formulation. The resulting solution was marketed in many territories as Serenade Soil Activ, and in the US as Minuet.

Then, in the US, our researchers worked out that Minuet could also have beneficial effects in rice. Multi-year trials in California confirmed its efficacy: Minuet application led to a significant yield increase, compared to conventional methods. This can more than justify the expenditure for the farmer, making it a productive and profitable solution.

This is an example of how ambitious we are with our aim to grow the use of biologicals in agriculture: we are not just working on discovering and registering new biologicals, but are also actively working to maximize the reach of those that already exist. This should continue in the coming years as new and scaled-up solutions come to market regularly. 

Another example is Ibisio, a biological seed treatment derived from black pepper extract, which has a powerful bird-repellent effect in corn. Ibisio has received its first registrations in Europe, where it is providing much-needed protection against an avian attack problem that’s reported to be rapidly growing. Ibisio was derived from a ″thinking outside the box″ innovation process – not only using a biological, but an ingredient from the food industry – and we foresee this delivering added value to growers in years to come.

This interview was published in AgroPages magazine 2024 Biologicals Special.

Contact Joyce Wang (joyce@agropages.com) to show your bio-solutions through AgroPages.