Download: ( 457 KB pdf) - Bayer CropScience Mexico

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