Matthias Berninger, vicepresidente de Asuntos Públicos y Sustentabilidad para Bayer, habla sobre cómo la empresa está innovando en la agricultura regenerativa y cómo se debería de trabajar en este contexto.
00:00Bienvenidos, gracias por acompañarme. El día de hoy está conmigo Matías Berninger,
00:14él es el Vicepresidente de Asuntos Públicos y Sustentabilidad para Bayer.
00:19Gracias por estar con nosotros hoy.
00:22Hablábamos hablando de cómo viviste en Washington, D.C., que es una ciudad hermosa,
00:26pero también es el lugar donde una narrativa, una narrativa, en términos de sustentabilidad y diversidad,
00:38ha arizado. Y esto es muy importante porque usted está liderando la sustentabilidad y public
00:44affairs en Bayer. Así que quiero empezar con eso. ¿Has Bayer cambiado la estrategia en que
00:51usted aborda los temas de estos temas? ¿Es esto algo que preocupa usted o es esto que está haciendo
00:57más de trabajar? Bueno, a empezar con, estoy muy feliz de estar aquí. La última vez que encontremos,
01:04fue la pandemia. Sí, sí. Y creo que con mucha gente de innovación,
01:10hemos conseguido, como una de las cosas, que hemos conseguido, como un mundo,
01:13poder enfrentar. Muchos olvidan eso. Pero estoy muy muy feliz que tuvimos vacíes y
01:19global collaboration to overcome the pandemic and we need innovation and global collaboration
01:26going forward. You asked about Washington DC. I work on sustainability topics since embarrassingly
01:34so 1992. Wow. So a very long time. The first conference on sustainability was in Rio. Back
01:45then the COP process started. Now COP is coming home to Brazil. And in those years I have seen
01:53sustainability being a topic everybody was excited about and I have seen backlash situations.
02:00The main point is climate change, extreme weather events and the problems for humanity ensuing
02:07from that will not go away. You can manage a pandemic poorly and still hope the pandemic
02:14goes away. Unfortunately for climate change that is not the case. We serve millions of
02:21farmers and these farmers are very often affected by those extreme weather events and especially
02:29the smallholder farmers have not contributed to climate change. They are not the ones that
02:33emitted the emissions that ultimately led to the problem. And that's why we at Bayer decided
02:40it's not about whether we have headwinds or tailwinds whether it's nice or not to talk about it.
02:47We need to stick to talking about it and providing solutions so that our customers can thrive.
02:54Talking a little bit about more about climate change and the COP which you just mentioned which
03:00will be in November if I am correct. That is correct. The next one. And I think this is really
03:05important. We cannot talk about agriculture or food security or the supply chain of food and health
03:15if we don't address climate change. And so my next question or follow-up is in North America we are a
03:23complementary region in terms of food security. And if we leave climate change on the side and don't think
03:31about this in a world where we are also talking about tariffs and protectionism the idea of food security
03:38or even ending poverty which is important for our conversations in November at the COP are less viable.
03:45How should the region approach these challenges and maybe arrive with something or a proposal at the COP
03:54that could work to lower this uncertainty that we are living?
03:59One of the things the President of Mexico does exceptionally well is her ability to really deeply listen
04:10in these very confrontative times to the US side. There has been a change in government and problems started to occur
04:20but the President of Mexico sticks to a strategy of deeply listening and seeking to understand.
04:28And in my conversations in Washington it's pretty clear nobody would like to see hunger increasing.
04:35Nobody would like to see food inflation increasing. In fact everybody is interested to solving these problems
04:42and we will not be able to make the progress we need if we fall back into finger pointing.
04:50You have said it, North America is a very integrated region. Food inflation as a problem can only be solved
04:58if Canada, the United States and Mexico work together. All of these regions have strengths and weaknesses
05:05in the agricultural systems. Climate change will create a lot of chaos in the food system.
05:11So we need that collaboration. And what I really like is that the farmers in Canada, in the United States
05:17and also here in Mexico completely understand that.
05:21What about regenerative agriculture? How is Bayer innovating in that or allowing us to understand how we should work towards that
05:33in this context of again not only uncertainty but weather, extreme weathers and a lot of rain where there wasn't?
05:43Regenerative agriculture for a smallholder farmer means to be able to produce more on less land and at the same time also to need less inputs. For example, to need less fertilizer, to need less water to achieve that.
06:01It sounds like magical and the beauty about agriculture is it's a place where this magic actually can happen.
06:09And under the headline or the buzzword of regenerative agriculture we see their progress.
06:15We believe we can produce more on less land. I talked about 1992. So if you compare soybean production in Brazil, 1992 to today, the overall production in Brazil grow by a factor of 10.
06:33The overall land that the Brazilians have been using for producing the soybeans only grew by a factor of five. That means in the time I'm working on sustainability, people were able to double the yield.
06:48And that is only possible because we leverage breakthroughs in science and we work very closely with the farmers that then actually make it happen.
06:59We've been hearing about bacterial immune resistance. And as you said at the beginning of the interview, we survived COVID and the pandemic thanks to global work that was together, like we did it together.
07:17So now in terms of what is coming ahead, we need to be ready for another pandemic, but we need to be ready for many other things that are new.
07:25Where is VIA finding new opportunities in areas that could improve our health and make us be ready for these changes that will happen?
07:34As you say, there might be another pandemic or something else that puts us at risk.
07:38I mean, first of all, we have this mission of health for all hunger for none.
07:46So our focus is humanity in its totality.
07:51When you look at the health care systems, only five of the eight plus billion humans today really have access to reasonably health care.
08:01So there is a lot of room for the pharma industry, for health care business in general to achieve that goal of health for all.
08:10And that's a growth opportunity we want to pursue.
08:13We are not focused only on the United States because there the profits are the highest.
08:19Health for all means for us to invest in places like Mexico.
08:23We have just done that.
08:25To invest in places like Africa where the health gap is the biggest.
08:29And in countries where we invest to also look at communities that are really not benefiting from good health coverage.
08:41That's the health for all side.
08:44The exciting part is that at the intersection of biology, chemistry and artificial intelligence.
08:51That intersection brought us, for example, the new generation of vaccines.
08:55At that intersection, amazing innovations are possible in the cell and gene technology.
09:01We are no longer programming computers.
09:03We start to program cells.
09:05Wow.
09:06And we are making huge progress in that space.
09:08We are also making huge progress using artificial intelligence to come up with new chemistry.
09:16Chemistry, even people at Bayer.
09:18I mean, we started to employ chemists in 1863.
09:23Abraham Lincoln was US president back then.
09:26Even chemists at Bayer are completely blown away by the new possibilities of artificial intelligence
09:32in the development of new molecules that ultimately lead to innovative medicines.
09:37And then thirdly, you need to focus on what we call unmet needs.
09:42An area that has been neglected by pharma research is, for example, menopause in women.
09:48Millions, hundreds of millions, if not billions of women suffer from the symptoms.
09:54And we are working on bringing innovative solutions in the area that increases the health of women to the market as we start.
10:02What are the two topics that you think are the most important to address?
10:07And what keeps you looking forward to it?
10:10COP will be a pretty serious business.
10:13Unfortunately, the United States will not play a leading role.
10:17That's going to be a problem.
10:19And Andre Dolago, who has to manage that COP, works very hard to still make this event a success.
10:28What I expect is that we are focusing on reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
10:38Less talk, less funny meetings, less finger pointing.
10:44What are transformational, disruptive solutions that can help reducing the actual concentration?
10:51Because let's not forget, since the first COP, the carbon emissions only went up.
10:58And the concentration of greenhouse gases was always higher than in the COP before.
11:03I do believe in the power of disruptions.
11:06We see it with renewable energy, today competitive with all other energy sources in the electricity space.
11:13We see it in agriculture, where we have amazing disruptive innovations in our pipeline.
11:18And very often, for example, short corn here in Mexico, already in the field.
11:23I think disruptive innovations are there.
11:27And that's what I'm looking forward to.
11:29That we focus on the stuff that really gets the job done.
11:32And we don't look at each other with a depressed look on our faces.
11:39Or we engage in finger pointing.
11:42I think the finger pointing is one of the biggest challenges we have.
11:46And the righteousness that some people believe they are smarter than others.
11:50And that's also true for the climate movement.
11:52It's not enough to believe that you are right.
11:56You also need to get the right stuff done.
11:58Let's end with that, because I think that's a powerful message that we need all for embracing the risks that we are about to head on face in the world.
12:12Thank you, Matias, again, for being with us.
12:14Y gracias a ustedes en la audiencia por habernos acompañado.
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