What if Digital Could Outsmart Climate Change? An Interview With Kristine Swan, Bayer Crop Science.

Kristine (00:05):

Sequestering carbon is a fairly old understanding, but at the same time, being able to put that into practice and being able to provide that as a value both to society and as a value to our farmers is kind of a new space.

Jim (00:20):

Welcome to What If? So What?, the podcast where we explore what's possible with digital and discover how to make it real in your business. I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld, and we get s**t done by asking digital leaders the right questions. What if, so what? And most importantly, now what? Hey everyone, this is Jim, and we're on with Kristine Swan of Bayer. Really happy to have you on the podcast today. Kristine, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Bayer.

Kristine (00:46):

Thanks, Jim. I'm excited to join you today. I'm the VP, Global Head of Digital Transformation & IT for our commercial business globally and crop science. So I'm responsible for our overall digital strategy transformation of not just our internal operations from a sales marketing contract to cash space, but also in thinking about what are those best exceptional experiences that we can bring our employees, our partners, and, of course, our customers. Personally, I actually grew up on a farm myself, so in northeast Missouri, and it's a pretty great opportunity for me now to be able to engage with and work with our farmers around the world. Many of them are just like my own father before he retired and are able to bring new solutions to them and new ways for them to produce more and conserve more through digital solutions.

Jim (01:42):

That's great, actually; that's a really personal bit that I think is fantastic about your story. So you grew up on a farm and you serve that community. Farming probably means a lot of things to a lot of different people. They, maybe they only know it because they go to the produce aisle or you know, they live in a rural area like I do, and we're surrounded by farms. Right. And maybe not really sure what's going on or, or what they're facing. There's a lot going on. From an environmental perspective, just a general business perspective, what are some of the big challenges that you're seeing out there?

Kristine (02:11):

Definitely, it's an increasingly complex and challenging environment, and I think we often talk about a lot of those big looming statistics. You know, we are gonna grow another 2 billion people in this planet in the next 25 years. Along with that, we need 50% more food and fuel. Along with that, we are actually at the same time reducing the arable land that we can plant and produce food on. We have an impact from climate change that continues to also reduce the harvest that the farmers are experiencing. But when you look at some of those huge challenges, I think sometimes it's hard then to be able to take that down to what does that mean for our customers, our farmers around the world. When you look at each individual farmer and the complexities that they're facing, whether they are a smallholder farmer growing vegetables and rice and a couple of hectares in Asia or they're a large crop farmer growing corn in the Americas for food and protein.

Kristine (03:12):

They really have to deal with a lot of change from an environmental perspective, a climate change, but also very much from a consumer and a policy perspective. You may not realize it, but over the course of a season, farmers have to make over 40 decisions. So what do they plant? When do they plant it? Where do they plant it? How do they irrigate that? How do they consider managing insect pressures or any type of mildew, whatever those challenges may be? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, when do they harvest? Where do they sell that? Where can they get the best price? So, there's already a number of decisions that go into a farmer's every year. And then again, you add onto that the fact that we've got major swings in climate now that are greatly impacting farmers' ability to produce. We have greater complexity in regulation, in compliance that they're, you know, having to just figure out how do I adjust to that and how do I manage through that? And so we're hearing a lot of these challenges while at the same time, like many other industries dealing with an increase in cost to manage. So, whether that's input costs, energy costs, labor costs, much of these are also impacting our farmers today.

Jim (04:24):

I thought digital transformation was complicated, but farmers have a lot, lot, lot to deal with <laugh>. So, what are farmers doing about this? The profession, the agricultural profession? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. What are some of the tricks or techniques they are collectively applying to deal with these decisions, these new pressures? Right, the uncertainty.

Kristine (04:44):

Yeah. And like you said, it's incredibly complex and it's a very, you know, it's one of the oldest industries, incredibly traditional industry as well. But the reality is why you may not look at it and say it's a digital industry. There is quite a bit of digital, both from a perspective of, you know, the equipment they use a combine, a tractor, being able to gain data in their field real time from those similar to we HA may have in our cars. So being able to leverage those sensors, IoT, weather data, and bring that together with the help of companies like Bayer and some of our platforms like Climate FieldView allows farmers to be able to collate and run the analytics on that data to help them make better decisions and field all the time. You know, we also look at how do we help provide them with other value streams and other ways that they can help manage their business, whether that be through sustainability practices and being able to have a market for more sustainable outputs. Or that could also be simply making sure that they're getting the best production that they possibly can in any particular year. And being able to minimize their inputs, being able to minimize energy, water use, and being able at the same time to really verify and show that, you know, their crops were sustainably produced in, in a safe and secure way for the consumer market.

Jim (06:15):

Kristine, you were mentioning when we were talking before about things like carbon sequestration, and you know, I've read about regenerative agriculture. These sound very complex. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of those processes or some of those strategies? And again, where, where does digital fit into those, you know, again, those, those are very complex terms. There's a lot behind it and we know digital's complex. That's why we're here to sort out. So how do those worlds come together?

Kristine (06:41):

You know, regenerative ag, I'll start there. We've got more of a driven focus moving forward on thinking about regenerative and just not sustainability. So, moving from producing more with less to really helping farmers produce more and restore more so bring more health back to soil, manage water, being able to restore biodiversity. And as you mentioned, the other kind of area where we focus is sequestering carbon. So sequestering carbon is a fairly old understanding, but at the same time, being able to put that into practice and being able to provide that as a value both to society and as a value to our farmers is kind of a new space. And so if you think about, I mean, we've all heard the number of companies that are looking to be carbon neutral moving forward, mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and thinking about how do they not only reduce their emissions, so whether you're manufacturing or transportation, but also knowing that you can't completely eliminate the carbon you may emit into the air or the greenhouse gases.

Kristine (07:53):

How can you then purchase carbon credits to help offset what you are emitting? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that's really where agriculture comes to play as part of that solution. And the way that works is that, you know, carbon is naturally in the ground. And so, we work with farmers on a couple of different practices so that they don't release carbon as they're farming. So, one way is what you call no-till. So, instead of breaking up the ground like you would before planting, you instead drill into the ground with that seed. We help them do practices where they don't have the same type of water runoff also for the degrading that soil and planting crops that actually help to pull carbon out of the air and hold that into the soil as well. And so through doing that, you're actually holding that carbon in the soil and in the earth and not releasing that into the atmosphere.

Kristine (08:49):

And so that's how the sequestration works. We have two of them plays that digital really comes in to help with that, besides just that initial helping farmers make the decisions and plant the right crop and solution for that sequestration. But we also help by measuring those practices with our Climate FieldView platform, which really is able to both measure the practices and what's happening on the farm, as well as provide some of that certification and verification as well. And so, then farmers are able to sell carbon credits into a voluntary marketplace that can then be purchased by the companies that are working towards carbon neutral. And so what really becomes a win-win-win, when you think about those manufacturing companies, other companies being able to gain those carbon credits, farmers are able to both further enhance the health of their soil for greater future production and also able to then capture value in a new way besides just from the harvesting of their grain as they sell these carbon credits. And of course, it's a win for society and our planet as well. Right, right. As we release less greenhouse gases.

Jim (10:04):

And that goes way beyond agriculture, right? It's a market; it's an exchange. Right?

Kristine (10:09):

Absolutely.

Jim (10:09):

Yeah. I think people don't know about that. That's worth looking into. So kinda, a final couple questions here, really kind of digging in behind, behind that, cause those are really novel ideas and very creative ideas and very practical ideas. But as a, a company that's been around for a long time mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, that might be considered a traditional type of company. How did this digital program make its way? Was this something that just evolved over time? Is it something you guys sort of realized you were shaken awake, and you said, we've gotta have a digital program. How does a digital program like get incorporated into the culture and the organization at Bayer? I'm really curious about how you guys made this realization and then made it real.

Kristine (10:55):

Yeah. So, I see it kind of as evolving a bit over a few different phases. The first is, as a science company, we've always been incredibly driven by data, data science. And as that and space has evolved into AI and, and machine learning as well, but we use that internally to really drive better products. So better breeding practices, being able to accelerate our ability to breed the best seeds on the market, as well as to be able to think differently about creating new crop protection solutions that had the, the least amount of impact on the environment as well. And so we've really leveraged data science to drive new ways to discover and do our research for new products. Then about eight, 10 years ago, we actually purchased a startup company, okay. Which is where Climate FieldView has come into the picture. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And with that, we then had a platform to be able to offer our farmers to be able to engage directly with farmers, and both collect their data and insights to layer on with the data that we already have.

Kristine (12:09):

We have over 250 layers, data layers, both from publicly available data that we bring in, as well as what farmers share, and we have internally in our own research. And we're able to really turn that into not just different dashboards and way for farmers to understand what's happening, but also to really start giving prescription and predictive analytics as well to farmers. And so that was, I'd say, another big kind of, you know, jump for us when we really brought in that digital farming platform and began to evolve with that. And then I say the last pieces as we took on some of our key sustainability goals of reducing our impact on the planet over the next couple decades, we really, at that point in time, also said, hey, we can't do this without digital. It's just not possible. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> the types of solutions that we need to be able to create for our farmers won't happen without the transformation that new innovation and technology can bring from our r and d pipeline. And how do we have more climate resilient products that we bring to farmers all the way through, you know, how do we play in different parts of the ecosystem and the value chain, like with carbon that allow us to bring those incentives to our farmers? And so digital has become the cornerstone of who, where, and the, the driver to pair up with our science to really, to really advance the industry and bring new solutions to the farmers and the value chain.

Jim (13:41):

That’s really cool. I I just, one, one final question. If you had kinda one piece of advice for a company that maybe it has not as far along as you guys are, you know, they, they're looking for creative ways to apply digital maybe in a very legacy traditional business model. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, what's one thing, one piece of advice you would give to someone in that situation?

Kristine (14:01):

I would encourage everyone to step back and think beyond the product or the service they're offering today. And so, one of the key ways that, you know, we've tried to rethink the space is understanding from our customers what challenges, opportunities, goals do they have broadly. And it's really helped us see beyond just, you know, a seed or a chemical product. What are some of the other ways and opportunities that we can help them create value and bring value to the food system? And then we stepped back and said, how do we apply our data, our digital expertise, and help in those adjacent spaces as well to help derive value? And to me, that's one of the best ways that you can transition yourself from, you know, really that product company, I'd say in many ways, that physical product company to really thinking more digitally Mm-Hmm. About how do you bring more value to, to your customers.

Jim (15:00):

That's great advice. We have to challenge ourselves every day, you know, and as somebody who eats food and lives on this planet every day, I, I love what you guys are doing. So, thanks for sharing that with us today, Kristine. Thank you. I look forward to hearing more later. And for our listeners, until next time, keep asking what, if so what, and most importantly, now what?

Kristine (15:19):

Thanks, Jim.

Jim (15:20):

Thanks, Kristine.

Joe (15:21):

You've been listening to What If? So What? a digital strategy podcast from Perficient with Jim Hertzfeld. We want to thank our Perficient colleagues, JD Norman and Rick Bauer, for our music. Subscribe to the podcast, and don't miss a single episode. You can find this season, along with show notes, at perficient.com. Thanks for listening.