Second Green Revolution

Another problem is that meteorologists are registering extreme weather events with increasing frequency. One well known example is El Niño: every three to six years, torrential rains devastate whole tracts of land in South America, while at the same time extreme weather leads to droughts in South East Africa, Indonesia and Australia, and frost in Florida, causing enormous harvest losses for farmers. Moreover, persistently unfavorable farming conditions such as water shortages, increasing salination of arable soils and extreme heat and cold are prime causes of enormous harvest losses. Climate change is adding to the stresses to which plants are subjected, with grave effects.

Stop the self-destruction program in cereals

“There is an urgent need for us not only to make agricultural production more efficient, but also to do it in a way which is sustainable,” says Professor Friedrich Berschauer, Chairman of the Board of Bayer CropScience. A key objective of the crop protection scientists is to increase corn, rice and wheat yields and make the plants more resistant to severe heat, cold, drought or intense sunlight. These factors put plants under enormous stress, triggering a process which can even lead to self-destruction. Researchers at Bayer Crop Science have put rice plants on a fitness program. They are pursuing two strategies: firstly, the scientists incorporate genes into the plants which should help them deal with excessive stress caused by dry and wet conditions. Secondly, they specifically deactivate individual genes which trigger excessive stress reactions in normal plants and lower the yield. “Our goal is to enable plants to produce high, stable yields over the longer term in spite of fluctuating environmental conditions," says Michael Metzlaff of the Bayer CropScience Innovation Center for Plant Biotechnology in Ghent, Belgium.

A “second green revolution” is needed

For Berschauer, biotechnology is a vital tool to safeguard the supply of food for the world population in the future. “We need a second green revolution. If we use plant biotechnology in combination with crop protection solutions in a targeted manner, we can achieve significant advances in productivity,” comments Bayer CropScience’s CEO. Other experts share this view. In addition to plant biotechnology, new crop protection agents can also increase harvest yields. The latest example is trifloxystrobin. This fungicide, belonging to the strobilurin group of active ingredients increases the ability of plants to withstand stress.
Because the demand for food in adequate quantities and at affordable prices must not be allowed to jeopardize nature, Bayer Crop Science has committed itself to an important principle. Using state-of-the-art technologies, the company wants to help both small and large-scale farmers achieve higher productivity on land already used for agriculture. This protects natural habitats from being converted into arable land.