Accelerating the transformation to a regenerative future in Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are essential for global food and nutrition security, also providing our growing population with the nutrients we need for a healthy diet. But a changing climate requires a sustainable food system. So how are we at Vegetables by Bayer leading the way with quality seeds and regenerative agriculture?

In the face of mounting challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity, fruit and vegetable growers are confronted with an increasingly daunting task: meeting the world's growing demand for quality produce while preserving vital resources and ensure food and nutrition security.

So, it is on growers to adapt quickly and on us to support them with the tools they need. Through our innovative seeds, we have been working on improving germplasm over the last decade – helping growers to maintain yields under increasing environmental pressures and thereby contributing to food and nutrition security across the world. However, to accelerate fulfilling our 2030 Sustainability Commitments, we need to think beyond products and move towards a solution-approach: Regenerative agriculture practices can help growers become more resilient and increase their productivity and farm incomes while improving soil health.

For us, regenerative agriculture is an outcome-based production model, with a core focus on improving soil health, and strengthening resilience as a key objective. Other principal aims include mitigating climate change through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon removal as well as enable climate adaptation. And in Fruits and Vegetables, increasing biodiversity in the crop system as well as minimizing impact of inputs also represent key outcomes.

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Mitigating and Adapting to a changing climate while reducing food losses

?We are expanding our focus from increasing yield and productivity to ensure marketable yield, enhancing climate resilience and growers’ income through innovative solutions and climate-resilient varieties. As example, in India, growers are encountering temperature changes, and our Seminis? tomato hybrid, Manik*, is more heat-tolerant, enhancing marketable yields and, consequently, food and nutrition security in the region. Our ambition is to deliver more innovative solutions and climate-resilient varieties to increase marketable yield and help growers to become more resilient to climate change. We are also working to reduce F&V losses and in the years to come we plan to offer even more innovative solutions and appealing varieties to reduce field and post-harvest losses.

Another ambition we have is to offer solutions that enable growers to reduce, sequester carbon emissions while improving soil health. Nitrogen for example, which is essential for plant growth but also a main driver for global warming, can be fixed in the soil naturally though leguminous crops being beneficial for soil health and yield. Our Vegetables by Bayer team in India recognized the potential of intercropping the Seminis Moraleda beans variety? to increase soil health and growers’ productivity. More than 5,000 smallholder growers are already implementing this regenerative approach.

While engaging with smallholders plays a significant role in advancing adoption of regenerative practices, we are also collaborating with professional growers worldwide. In the USA, our partnership with the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) in the pilot project “A Vibrant Future” encourages fruits and vegetables growers to adopt climate smart agriculture practices with the goal of establishing a consumer-driven, climate-smart market for fruits and vegetables. The USDA has selected this project to receive $15 million from the US Department of Agriculture. Over the next four years, Bayer will offer innovative crop protection, seeds, and digital solutions to support the one hundred growers participating in the pilot phase.

We are also sourcing innovation externally. Our partnership with the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) in the International Climate Tech Program is designed to accelerate the development and scale-up of transformative solutions that enable open field and protected fruit and vegetable growers in the USA, Mexico and Europe to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Finally, we are taking steps to reduce our operations environmental footprint, and our global objective is to achieve climate neutrality in our own operations by 2030.?

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Positive impact for growers and communities

?Our Vegetables by Bayer teams in Asia, Africa and Latam are working to improve the lives millions of F&V smallholder growers. As example of how innovation can support smallholders to improve their social and economic well-being comes from Africa, where 89% of smallholder farmers growing our Seminis? Ansal variety in Kenya shared how marketable yields significantly improved their livelihoods. Moving forward, we’re exploring further solutions in an ecosystem-oriented approach.

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Conserving water

Innovative seeds are not only the essential component needed to grow a healthy and nutritious crop – these also have the capacity to help growers tackle resource challenges. For example, in 2022 in Woodland, CA, Bayer trialed five new Seminis? processing tomato varieties that have demonstrated increased yield potential using 20% less water** – a major advantage for Californian growers who are experiencing increased irrigation restrictions due to extreme drought. Moving forward we are looking at innovative solutions that enable growers to improve water use per kilogram of crop specially in countries that will face extremely high-water stress.

Regenerating for the future

By doing more of what we are already achieving, we are able to accelerate our sustainability efforts and make considerable progress towards a regenerative future. We are excited to provide growers and consumers innovative solutions that enable sustainable fruits and vegetables as food or ingredients - to support a nutritious and healthy life. This is our vision for the future of regenerative farming. Together, we can help lead the way in nourishing people and the planet.

#regenerativeagriculture #vegetableseeds #foodsecurity #teambayer #vegetablesbybayer

Authors:

Cristiane Louren?o , Global Sustainability Director, Bayer Vegetable Seeds

Venkata Kishore , Global Head of Smallholders & Sustainability, Bayer Vegetable Seeds

*Based on the data from the ten trials in 2020-2021 by Bayer (against Heemsona variety) in Rajasthan and Haryana Indian states.

**Based on earlier trials performed in 2022 in Woodland, CA, with five Seminis? processing tomato varieties. Preliminary findings show that yield was preserved, and yield stability observed for certain varieties

Performance may vary, from location to location and from year to year, as local growing, soil and weather conditions may vary. Growers should evaluate data from multiple locations and years whenever possible and should consider the impacts of these conditions on the grower’s fields.

Bayer, Bayer Cross, and Seminis? are registered trademarks of Bayer Group. ?2023 Bayer Group. All rights reserved.