Sask. gov’t and Bayer Crop Science announced a new memorandum of understanding (MOU)

At COP28 Premier Scott Moe and Bayer Crop Science announced a new memorandum of understanding (MOU). The MOU will see the province and the global life science company, partner on exploring sustainable agriculture technologies, with an ultimate goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions in farming. This will include work in digital farming, smart farming and precision farming.

“This announcement is very exciting for our ag-tech sectors, and will help build and protect our farming communities,” Premier Scott Moe said. “We’re very pleased that Bayer is interested in exploring Saskatchewan’s innovation capabilities. Together, we can help create new solutions for global food security and sustainability.”

Bayer is an enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition and one of the largest agricultural companies in the world. This partnership will focus on mutual goals of agriculture sustainability measures, research and innovation for the global food supply chain.

“Climate change, increasingly stressed ecosystems, and a growing world population call for a transformation of agriculture to become regenerative. We need to produce more with less while restoring more,” Head of Strategy and Sustainability of Bayer’s Crop Science division Frank Terhorst said.

As the global population grows, so does the global demand for food. Together, Bayer and Saskatchewan hope to explore innovations that increase Canada’s agricultural productivity while decreasing environmental impacts. They also hope to create new opportunities for economic growth. The MOU begins immediately and will last five years.

While Bayer has signed similar agreements with various partners in Europe, this marks their first major signing for these technologies in Canada. Saskatchewan has a long history of pioneering sustainable agricultural practices. In 2021 alone, farmers sequestered about 15 million tonnes of carbon in their land, thanks to strategies such as increasing crop production and zero-till practices.