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Setting the Standard inProduct StewardshipFor Bayer CropScience, taking care that ourproducts are used safely and responsibly iscertainly not a matter of paying lip service tooutside expectations. Product stewardship livesas a corporate philosophy and is expressedthrough a multitude of projects sponsored byour country organizations.8 COURIER 1/07

Although crop protection products are abeneficial technology, essential to securingthe world’s food supply, they regularly hitthe headlines under suspicion of harminghuman health and the environment. However,the incidents that are reported mostlyinvolve inappropriate use or handling ofthese chemical substances. In order to preventsuch product abuses, and to avoid accidents,the major crop protection companiesare committed to providing extensiveproduct stewardship. Bayer CropScience isat the cutting edge of promoting the responsiblemanagement of our products,within the company, in the field, and beyond.Product stewardship starts with the inventionof an active substance and continuesthroughout the product life-cycle, up toand including the disposal of empty containersor obsolete stock. Every year, BayerCropScience evaluates its activities and assessesthe level of compliance with its productstewardship policy. This policy and thekey requirements derived from it, arebased on the International Code of Conducton the Distribution and Use of Pesticides,set up by the Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO) of the United Nations.The Product Stewardship Program ofBayer CropScience has its roots in ResponsibleCare – a program sponsored by theChemical Manufacturers Association. Thefeatures of the principles include in particularthe consistent application of productstewardship across the entire value-addedchain, and a management system approachto all aspects of safety, health protectionand environmental protection. Bayer Crop-Science goes an extra mile with ProductStewardship as will be shown in the followingexamples.Paper does not blush but Bayer Crop-Science product stewards would if one oftheir substances posed a danger if handledand applied properly. We have 88 stewardsworking around the globe, each of whom iscommitted to the cause of ensuring the safeuse of our products.The annual assessment produces somereassuring figures. Take one example: the2006 Bayer CropScience safe seed-treatmentcampaign in the Ukraine, whichreached 4,000 farms via direct contacts,and some 18,000 farms through the media.Dr. Peter Ohs, Senior Safe Use Manager atBayer CropScience, is pleased with thesuccess of this project: “The campaign significantlyincreased the percentage ofusers wearing protective equipment to a remarkableextend. But this was not our onlyconcern. Above all, we wanted to raise operators’awareness and convey the benefitsof safe product use.”One Philosophy, two targetsThe safe-use campaign in the Ukraine isonly one of many country- and productspecificprojects in progress, all of whichadd together to form a well-rounded policy.“Within Bayer CropScience, product stewardshipis a philosophy that influences allcompany operations”, Peter Ohs underlines.He makes it clear that stewardshipimplies more than just rescue work wherehazards arise for health and the environment:“product stewardship has two maintargets: minimizing potential risk, andmaximizing the benefits derived fromproduct use, both for farmers and for ourcompany”.To ensure the successful implementationand monitoring of its product stewardshipapproach, Bayer CropScience has fixedtwelve stewardship principles, each ofwhich leads to concrete instructions. Thecompany guidelines comply fully with theFAO Code of Conduct on the Distributionand Use of Pesticides. One of the twelveBayer CropScience principles focuses onObsolete StockManagementICM & UsersTrainingthe training of staff and customers in all aspectsof responsible product use. The companyruns training programs for users in allcontinents; the project in the Ukraine isjust one example.“In the Ukraine, we aim to advancesafety standards when applying BayerCropScience products through two parallelstrategies: the instruction of farm workers;and winning their belief in product stewardship”explains Evgenia Ustimenko, theproject leader. The safe-use campaign precededthe launch of Lamardor ® , a fungicidalseed treatment product based on prothioconazole.The campaign comprised educationaladvertising in the national media,public discussion meetings, and trainingevents for retailers, farmers and farmworkers. The participation of the latter twogroups was further encouraged by settingup a competition for the best on-farm implementationof product stewardship.As the Ukrainian project scored so wellin the company-internal annual assessmentof product stewardship projects, it is nowbeing expanded into Moldavia and Romaniain 2007. However, project activities alwayshave to be adapted to local conditions,because different countries vary insize and agrarian structure. The annual as-Product Stewardshipis a Life Cycle ApproachProductStewardshipRegistration, MarketingResearch andDevelopmentContainerManagementManufacturingWarehousing1/07 COURIER 9

The product stewardship campaign of Bayer CropScience in the Ukraine led to anincreased percentage of users wearing protective clothes.The product stewardship project in Southand Latin America is called “Agrovida”. Theproject logo is widely used and draws theattention to this project.sessment of all product stewardship projectsserves a double purpose, as Dr. Ohspoints out: “The evaluation gives immediatefeedback to our country organizationsas to how they can further improve theiractivities. Furthermore, experience fromthe countries provides the basis for formulatingglobal product stewardship strategiesand developing global projects.”Projects are making an impactFor instance, the “Safe Use in Seed Treatment”is a global campaign, which issteered from Bayer CropScience Headquartersin Monheim, Germany. A CD-ROM “Guide to responsible seed treatment”has been produced and is availablein various languages; it is aimed at differenttarget groups, i.e. for both farm and industrialuse. This resource is used in extensionand training. Another training kit targetsresponsible product use in greenhouses.An example of the use of these materialsis a pilot project in Turkey, which willbe transferred to other countries around theMediterranean area after it has been evaluated.“We have to target our resources to alimited number of projects. But these areprojects that make an impact”, reasonsPeter Ohs.In line with this prioritization approach,Bayer CropScience is currently concentratingon offering training for crop protectiontraders and extension officers, becausethese people act as knowledge multipliersin their regions. In Brazil for example - thecompany has started a certification schemefor retailers who are capable of providingthe appropriate product stewardship knowhow.Distributors who have been awarded acertificate are audited regularly. Anotherexample is the training of retailers by BayerCropScience China, under the BayerKey Retailer project. Projects like thiscomply with another principle of the productstewardship policy that relates to ourbusiness partners: they are expected to applythe same level of responsibility as isdemanded within Bayer CropScience as acompany.These product stewardship principles(and indeed all of the twelve) accompanythe full life-cycle of a crop protectionproduct. They start right at the time of selectingand testing new substances, andcontinue to apply to product registration,labeling, and formulation. “You can pack alot of safety into the formulation of an activeingredient”, explains Andreas Stork,Team Leader of Insecticide FormulationTechnology at Bayer CropScience. “Forexample, improved adhesion and penetrationof a substance reduces the necessaryapplication rate.” In another project, BayerCropScience researchers have developed astem-injection system for palm trees thatminimizes the product exposure of usersand the environment. Closely connectedwith this stewardship principle is the developmentof innovative product packaging,for example, with a built-in measuringcup.10 COURIER 1/07