Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine - Translated by Shelley Jambresic, Checkbiotech

The current worldwide discussion about depletion and price increase of fossil fuels might enhance the acceptance towards plant biotechnology.

“Particularly the heavy price increase of crude oil heats up the dispute about renewable primary products and biofuels,” said Friedrich Berschauer - the chairman of the Bayer Crop Science, a subgroup of Bayer, which is concentrating on pest management - at a presentation of the Association of the Economy Journalism (Wirtschaftspublizistische Vereinigung) in Mannheim. The adoption of green biotechnology could clearly raise the efficiency of biofuels, which would decrease the need for subsidies and more acreage.

Berschauer sees an urgent call for political action in Germany and Europe. "We will not get around the subject of renewable primary products, and a competence in plant biotechnology is a crucial competitive factor," he said.

With a turnover of about 300 million Euro, the yet very small segment BioScience represents for the whole crop protection management of Bayer a rapidly growing business, with a yearly investment of 25 percent of sales being put towards research and development. However, so far the know-how can only be marked outside Europe, with a main focus on America.

With a 20 percent contingent of a total of 30 billion Euro in sales of crop protection products, Bayer CropScience is struggling with the Swiss Syngenta for the leading position on the world market. The manifested ambition of the company is a further expansion of its position as an innovative leader. According to Berschauer, this includes the streamlining of the product portfolio of older products with lower gross margins, and a continuous adoption of new substances with higher contribution margins.

Since 2000, Bayer has launched 16 new agents on its own. By 2011, the rollout of ten new agents - currently in the last testing phase - is planed. The company is confident that the new products have the potential of a top turnover of 2 billion Euro. Berschauer estimated the costs for ten years of research and development of a new crop protection spray to be about 200 million Euro.