During the 3rd Summit Forum for Pesticide Usage Reduction, Efficiency Improvement and Zero Growth that was jointly held by the China Crop Protection Industry Association (CCPIA) and the Organizing Committee of the 32nd China Plant Protection Information Exchange & Pesticide and Sprayer Facilities Fair, CCPIA and Bayer CropScience (China) Co., Ltd. signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Safe and Scientific Pesticide Use Training. Regarding Bayer’s alliance with CCPIA to call on the industry to educate and motivate farmers to use pesticides safely and scientifically and promote sustainable agriculture, a reporter from the Journal of China Agrochemicals has interviewed Bayer CropScience’s Klaus Kirsch, Global Manager Bayer Forward Farming, Vinay Sharma, Product Development Manager APAC and Dr. Sun Xinyou, Stewardship & Sustainability Expert.

What experiences can Bayer share in efficiency improvement, usage reduction and sustainable development?
Klaus Kirsch, Global Manager Bayer Forward Farming at Bayer CropScience: Since 1863, Bayer has taken “sustainable development” as a core element for its corporate development and has been committed to becoming a safety, health, environmental protection and quality leader in crop protection, seed industry and environmental science. Through the efforts of generations, its achievements are now recognized worldwide. Bayer’s sustainable development measures have been promoted in various aspects, including integrated crop solutions, safe pesticide use training, water resources protection, bee protection, etc. Those programs have effectively enabled growers to know the products they use, ensured use safety and environmental safety and improved growers’ safe pesticide use awareness. Innovation-based sustainable agriculture is the only way out in face of challenges, while pesticide usage reduction and efficiency improvement are effective means to implement sustainable agriculture. Therefore, we are willing to make joint efforts with partners represented by CCPIA and other parties with common interests in the industry to promote the transformation of Chinese agriculture into sustainable agriculture.

What can Bayer’s global sustainable development bring to China?
Klaus Kirsch, Global Manager Bayer Forward Farming at Bayer CropScience: Bayer’s global sustainable development is reflected in every aspect of Bayer’s business, from practicing responsible product safety management and developing innovative pesticide application technologies to adopting integrated crop solutions. Bayer’s sustainable development idea, mainly based on integrated crop solutions, is to provide technical support to famers, help famers diagnose, detect and use pesticides scientifically and safely and reduce pesticide usage through precise dosage; and finally facilitate the realization of China’s “pesticide zero growth campaign by 2020” by improving farmers’ pesticide application technologies, improving efficiency, saving pesticide use costs and reducing waste. Bayer CropScience (China) Co., Ltd. and CCPIA have jointly held 179 lectures of “Using Pesticides Safely and Scientifically and Building Beautiful Villages” and trained over 10,000 farmers. Since 2014, Bayer has trained over 100,000 famers and distributed over 50,000 pairs of disposable gloves and over 20,000 protective clothing and masks, with a total value of over 1 million Yuan. To reduce waste of resources and environmental pollution, Bayer has initiated the pesticide package recycling program and the pesticide wastewater treatment and biodegradation technology and so on. Bayer is willing to bring its rich experiences to China, do well in the training of farmers on safe and scientific pesticide use with its partners and improve the overall level of the industry.

How can Bayer’s global sustainable development be applied in China?
Vinay Sharma, Product Development Manager APAC at Bayer CropScience: Currently the industry has a low awareness of safe pesticide use and environmental protection on the whole, and it has become a problem not only in China but also in the whole Asia. The implementation of sustainable agriculture should start with changing farmers’ pesticide use awareness and helping them select suitable products. By choosing the right products, it can prevent misuse and abuse of pesticides and guide farmers to use products correctly and more appropriately. Every link from selection to use is important. Therefore, Bayer trains over 30,000 farmers on safe and scientific use of pesticides every year, including explaining the regulations and technologies on safe pesticide use and teaching them how to use protective appliances and the correct maintenance and use of pesticide applying machines. With the improvement of the living standard, people now pay more attention to agricultural product and food safety. Therefore, the awareness of safe and scientific pesticide use will be definitely enhanced in future. Bayer attaches great importance to the cooperation with CCPIA. CCPIA also pays attention to safe and scientific pesticide use and done a lot of work. As an enterprise, Bayer really wants to cooperate with CCPIA and establish such a platform to serve Chinese farmers and promote the development of Chinese sustainable agriculture.

What measures will Bayer take to promote China’s “pesticide zero growth”?
Dr. Sun Xinyou, Stewardship & Sustainability Expert at Bayer CropScience: To further promote China’s initiative of “zero growth in pesticide usage by 2020”, Bayer will adopt measures in the following three aspects in future: first, continue to strengthen the cooperation with CCPIA in training farmers on safe pesticide use; launch trainer training programs to train trainers for high-level industry personnel. Second, improve pesticide application technology: Chinese farmers lack pesticide application technology; backward technology has caused low pesticide utilization and environmental pollution. Therefore, enabling farmers to use advanced and reasonable pesticide application technology can reduce pesticide usage; introduce advanced pesticide application machines to farmers and facilitate the perfect combination of technology and machines so as to achieve the goal of good effects, small usage and saving costs. Third, reduce environmental pollution. We will insist on pesticide wastewater treatment, used pesticide package recycling and bee protection programs. Bayer, as a leading player in the industry, is willing to lead the industry to create a safe pesticide use or sustainable development atmosphere, and hopes more enterprises will join us and make contributions to the sustainable development of the industry.

Practice the idea of safe and scientific development and promote the healthy development of the industry
Sun Shubao, Chairman of CCPIA and Director of the CCPIA Committee for Using Pesticide Safely and Scientifically, attaches great importance to the work of CCPIA and hopes that through the constant efforts of the CCPIA Committee for Using Pesticide Safely and Scientifically, media publicity and the practice of the members of the Committee, the idea of “using pesticides safely and scientifically” can be spread widely in the industry. He also hopes more enterprises can participate and help more farmers. Chinese farmers’ safe pesticide use awareness still needs to be enhanced. Therefore, CCPIA is willing to cooperate closely with enterprises like Bayer, through which the two parties can give play to their respective strengths, establish training platforms and mechanisms on safe and scientific pesticide use, popularize sustainable agriculture solutions such as scientific and reasonable pesticide use methods, advanced pesticide application equipment and green prevention and promote the healthy development of the pesticide industry and the structural transformation and upgrading. He calls on all parties to pay attention to safe and scientific pesticide use and make contributions to food safety and environmental safety.

Summary: Sustainable agriculture is a hot topic and a world trend. Chinese people are of course active supporters of sustainable agriculture. However, to achieve sustainable development, there are a lot of problems that need to be solved: such as resources, environment and population. Only when relevant parties join forces to work out a set of effective policies and measures and put them into practice can the problems solved and the predicaments be broken through. If China can develop a mature, typical sustainable development mode for agriculture, it will be of great significance to the developing countries faced with similar problems.