The SeedGrowth Center network gets a boost in Brazil

The SeedGrowth Center network is growing – both in reputation among industry stakeholders, and in the scale of the services it offers, ranging from support and troubleshooting to research, quality control, training and equipment testing.

Recently, the global SeedGrowth Center in Monheim got an upgrade, with new state-of-the-art equipment to enable it to precisely meet customer and farmer needs. But SeedGrowth isn’t stopping there. The SeedGrowth Center in Brazil has now undergone similar improvements – and the new center was unveiled to stakeholders at a major launch event on May 7-9.

Across the three days, different stakeholder groups were able to experience the revamped SeedGrowth Center: the Bayer team welcomed representatives of customers and partners such as seed multipliers, cooperatives and distributors. The new facilities were also shown to the Bayer science community. Each visiting group got a chance to explore the new center and its upgraded technology, and to speak to experts and ask questions that pertained to their particular needs.

The inauguration day started with a surprise. As the ribbon was cut on the upgraded center, something else was also unveiled: a Formula One racecar sporting a SeedGrowth livery. This was more than just a stunt – the team chose a Formula One car because they see a conceptual link between this and seed treatments. A Formula One car needs a lot more than a driver to win races. The driver is clearly important. But they can only go so far without a skilled team around them, harnessing industry-leading technology, knowledge and experience. As for seed treatments, the product itself is in the ‘driving seat’, but it will only deliver to its full potential if it’s in the hands of people who see the full picture and support it with services, research and development initiatives.

Once inside the redesigned center, visitors could look around and attend presentations of the new equipment and the tailored services it enables, as well as getting a sneak preview of forthcoming innovations in the SeedGrowth portfolio. These were supported by practical demonstrations of what SeedGrowth solutions can do – such as petri-dishes showing their inhibition of fungal growth, or real plants at different growth stages. The immersion got even deeper as visitors then moved to a nearby field where demo plots highlighted SeedGrowth products’ real-world efficacy.

The local SeedGrowth team already engages closely with its customers, partners and colleagues – but nevertheless, the chance to meet face-to-face and see new developments for themselves was highly important to the visitors. On the whole, they reported gaining a new understanding of Bayer’s mission to benefit the value chain and farmers, and what effort that entails.

“The various innovations they are bringing can add value to production, and also bring alternative solutions to the problems we have been facing in the field,” said Ricardo Oliveira from the seed company SLC Sementes. 

Marcello Silva, from the distributor Agromave, commented: “I’m sure our customers will be very pleased with the new technologies presented here today – always helping our producers to produce more.”

José Machado, a professor at the Federal University of Lavras, said: “I see this as very, very good for the market. These alternatives are going be very interesting.” 

And Roberto Destro, from the COAMO agro-industrial cooperative, added: “COAMO has had a partnership with Bayer for a very long time, and today was a very important day to learn about new products that will bring our cooperative members many opportunities and solutions.”

Brazil’s SeedGrowth Center clearly has significance for its local market – as do all of the eight SeedGrowth Centers across the world. Having centers in different countries and regions, rather than trying to serve everything from a single global center, means services are more accessible to customers in different countries. Moreover, the centers aren’t totally identical – their features and functions are customized to meet the needs of locally prevalent crops, climatic conditions and businesses.

This also makes the SeedGrowth Centers significant to Bayer’s global strategy for both seeds and crop protection, because they help deliver a tailored and targeted approach for every customer. Bayer’s mission is to meet customer and farmer needs with tailored solution packages – and those packages contain services as well as products. SeedGrowth Centers make those services more tangible, inspiring customer confidence and trust.

In fact, they do even more than this, because they also provide ‘proactive’ services, such as research, product development, training and testing. The result of these is that seed treatment quality and reliability is optimized even further, before the products even reach customers.

It’s through a combination of reactive and proactive services that the SeedGrowth centers deliver on our vision to be true ‘partners in growth’, helping value chain partners and farmers get the most out of seed treatments. With the upgrades to the center in Brazil, SeedGrowth can do even more.

Laura Landucci, Customer Marketing, SeedGrowth, said: “We are exploring new technologies and practices to maximize the potential of seeds, striving for more productive harvests. “This would not be possible without the collaboration of a diverse network of partners. Researchers, distributors, cooperatives and seed multipliers will be our source of understanding of the main demands. Together, we can drive innovation and promote the advancement of the best solutions.”

“Having been with the Brazilian SeedGrowth team over the three days, I was able to see their incredible level of expertise, passion and ambition,” added Frank Laubert, Global Head of SeedGrowth Centers. “My sincere congratulations to everyone who contributed – and best wishes for the future, too!”