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Securing Harvests – Preserving Nature
In 1970 the crops produced by one farmer in Germany fed an average of 27 people. Around 35 years later, the same farmer can supply food for 128 people - almost five times as many. This is rapid progress indeed. One of the factors behind this progress is the great advance made in crop protection. Products of the kind developed and marketed by Bayer CropScience safeguard harvests and yields all over the world.
Crop protection starts with seeds. A special process known as “dressing” protects seeds against attack by fungi and, consequently, against a number of plant diseases. Dressing also keeps insect pests away from seeds and young plants. It’s an efficient technology because the active substances are used precisely where they are needed. In many cases there is no longer any need to spray large areas of land; in other cases the number of spray treatments can be greatly reduced. In other words, far less of the active substance is needed.
But it’s not possible to prevent all plant diseases and pests in this way. So Bayer CropScience also markets a large range of crop protection agents in other formulations which are applied using different techniques to protect all the major crops. Some of these products act on weeds, some eliminate fungal diseases, and others control pests that infest crops.
All these herbicides, fungicides and insecticides have one thing in common: many years of testing have shown that they all combine optimal action against pathogens with minimal impact on users, consumers and the environment. The active ingredients decompose rapidly and are then not detectable either in the soil or in groundwater.
At the same time, the people at Bayer CropScience know that a good crop protection agent is only good as long as there is nothing better. That’s why scientists at all the company’s research centers are constantly looking for new substances which could provide even more targeted and more effective protection for crops against pests while leaving the environment unharmed. Because protecting farmers’ yields is one way of making a major contribution to safeguarding the world’s food supply.
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