Let's get into now the next little while we're talking about seeds and crop chem. Very happy to have Bayer, obviously, a large farmer and ag player, we've got the Crop Science team here today. Here from Bayer today is Rodrigo Santos, Head of Crop Science. We've got Brian Naber, who's the President of North America, Australia, and New Zealand Crop Science, and we have Guru Ramamurthy, who's the CFO of Crop Science. We want to be interactive. Please submit your questions as usual on the app. Before we get into Q&A, Rodrigo, gonna give a little bit state of the union of Crop Science?
Cool. First of all, thanks for being here with us. Thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit about Bayer and a little bit of our recent developments. Just interesting, one year ago, May 13th, 2025, we were here, and we presented to the market our 5-year strategy. I want to give you a little bit of an update 1 year after that, and that will be a little bit what I want to share here, four slides, just to give you a little bit of an overview. Just to recap, this one slide here is just a recap. If you summarize all the hours that work that we did last year in May, in May 13, this is the summary of one slide. This is our 5-year framework.
This is guiding our organization in a daily basis, and the plan here is basically the following. To expand our leadership in the market, we put a plan that is based on the triangle here. How we're gonna grow sales, how we're gonna expand margin, and probably expand margin is a very important element of the plan here that I will do an emphasis here, and how we're gonna generate further cash. Those three elements was part of the plan. If you think about that one, we start with the foundation, and the foundation is things that we really control. The foundation we mentioned and we committed to save more than EUR 1 billion of savings in the next years.
This is in our entire value chain, from R&D, to product supply, commercial, global functions, we have this EUR 1 billion of savings plan in place. At the same time, that we are very excited about launching the innovation. We talk about the 10 blockbusters that we have in our pipeline, and we are launching in 2027, 2028, 2029, and forward. We're gonna launch a lot of that innovation, and this is adding EUR 3.5 billion on our top line, the growth on the top line. If you combine the elements of the growth based on innovation in the pipeline with the discipline on the execution of the savings that we have on the foundation, and we're gonna generate EUR 1.5 billion additional cash on that plan. This is what we presented.
The good news is, if you have the next slide, is that one message to you, we are on track. We are exactly on track on that one. We've been executing this during 2025, and we are continuing to execute in 2026. Let me start from the foundation. Let me start from the things that we are totally under control. We said EUR 1 billion of saving. EUR 150 of that is on R&D, and we announced the consolidation of our site, exit of Frankfurt, consolidating Monheim. We are adjusting our strategy on crop protection. Most of those savings is in crop protection in chemistry. We are adjusting on key markets, key countries, key crops. Just one simple example, we exit 10 countries in Asia in terms of regulatory applications. We are also adjusting our portfolio.
We are pruning 200 products of low-margin products. We are divesting AI, this is all in course as we speak. A second part of that plan is product supply, big one. Product supply is EUR 600 million out of the EUR 1 billion. Product supply, again, mainly in crop protection, was a big portion of that plan, also we are on track. We announced again the exit of Frankfurt, the consolidation in Dormagen. We also, after that, we closed three sites globally, adjusting our footprint outsourcing some of the AIs. We are measuring AI by AI that we have, how we can be very competitive versus our key competitors in the market. 200 of that is done. 400 is coming in the next years, as you can imagine, for product supply, it's also on track.
That's the same for go-to-market. A key one is the transformation of the go-to-market that we're gonna hear more from Brian here. We are extremely excited about North America, about U.S., what we have in the plans for the next five years, and we can talk more about that. The same time for the innovation. The innovation, I just wanna take the opportunity to say that we are advancing all the innovation that we are planning. I brought here three simple examples. Preceon, the short stature corn biotech. Vyconic, the soybean that we are planning as well. Also crop protection, icafolin, and the others that we have in the plan. This is on track. We just this week announced our Q1 results.
If I give you a message, it was very important when we were in May 13 last year here, the first thing that was important is to deliver 2025. As you can imagine, it was great. We delivered 2025, and we guide 2026 to be a very important step towards our plan in the 5-year. Q1, good news is that we are confirming our guidance for this year. We plan to expand our margin from 19.4% to 20%-22%. We are planning to growth our top line by 1%-4% in our core business, and this is what we are putting in track, and Q1 is helping on that one. We have that, of course, in place as we plan for the full year 2026.
2026 is an important year for us, not only in terms of another step. It's also all the execution that we are doing, that we can talk more about in the plan. Finally, if you allow me just to conclude here, and then we're going to have a good debate, a good conversation here. If you think about our plan, and we were just talking upstairs right now on that one. I'll start with we have a very strong pipeline. I've been working in this industry for almost 30 years, if you combine my years with Monsanto and Bayer now. What we have for the next five years is something that we normally would have in 10years, 15 years. We're going to have seven biotech traits launching U.S. We're going to have six biotech traits launching in Brazil.
Just to talk about these two key markets. You have our breeding effort, our genetics on our new innovation on that one, really advancing. I'll give one simple example. 75% of the hybrids that we are selling in U.S. this year is coming from the last three years of launch. 75%. This is the new Breeding 3.0 that we have in our engine here. We're launching new crop protections, icafolin, the first herbicide after 30 years, and Plenexos and others that we announced as well. We are very excited about innovation, and this will drive a lot. At the same time, this is something that I heard a lot from you and I'm here to reinforce that. We got the feedback.
Discipline on the execution of the margin expansion on the short term as well in terms of the savings that we're putting. We can combine the savings of EUR 1 billion at the same time that we are preparing all that launch, and that's what the organization is doing and that we are executing. If I leave you with this message, a lot of work happening right now in the organization. Great steps forward that we are doing. Quarter by quarter, we still have three quarters to go in 2026, and we are excited about the next years that we plan for the launches that we have. With that, I'll ask open for you to the questions then.
Okay. Let's start top down, 'cause we got a good question from the app that I think is very topical. You, you rubbed your hands. You're getting ready. Okay.
Yes.
Okay. Okay.
Let's go.
I saw that in my periphery. Okay. What, like, does Bayer's view on U.S. planted corn acres align with the USDA? Are you seeing any trends of corn shifting to soybeans from the respect of the seeds? I guess the question is, are you seeing more shift than what the market's expecting, you know?
Great. Brian will help me. We are leading North America.
Yep. I can speculate on this one, Joel. How about that? What we see from our order bank delivery, plantings today is that this ±95 million acres of corn, ±85 million acres of soy still feels like roughly the right range. We know that the shift from corn to soy has happened. We've had a good planting season. I mean, it's been a good start to the season. We don't have anything that we can see today that is fundamentally off.
I guess North America was pretty locked and loaded from a crop insurance perspective. South America is sort of next up here with lots of stuff going on in the world, you know, war and fertilizer prices. Do you have a early indication on seed price cards in Brazil and what you expect the market to do?
For the next season?
Yeah.
Yeah, for next season?
For this season coming.
Yeah, coming.
No, we And...
Early, but not that early.
No, no, it's very consistent. You're gonna hear the same element. We are bringing new hybrids. Just allow me to invest 30 seconds on that one. Mike Graham was here with me last year, and he was talking about what we did with AI, artificial intelligence on breeding and how we are putting Breeding 3.0, and we are accelerating that one, and I gave you one number. That's the same for Latin America. When you bring that innovation, we are pricing for value. We see low to mid-single digit prices increases on that innovation. That should be coming again to the future of our seeds. Yeah.
Okay. Anything going on in the Brazilian market on technology changes, share shifts, anything going on that you're expecting this year, or pretty consistent?
If you look a little bit on the Q1, our seeds and traits grew by 7%. Our soybeans by 9%, corn as well. This not including the licensing resolution that we had. This is a strong demonstration of what Brian was saying. Our engine is working in terms of what we need to bring to the market. We always talk about the blockbusters. I want to emphasize a little bit of the breeding, because this is the foundation of every farmer, right? Is what is the germplasm that they are planting? You put on top of that the biotech traits and the crop protection and the digital platforms. This is very important.
We feel that we are on track for this year. Of course, if you think about U.S. as an example, U.S. is a big market for us, for our competitors. Represent something between 45% to 55%, depending on which company you're talking about, but this is a large representation. When you think about U.S. in terms of the market dynamics, when you think about we are preparing the launch of Vyconic in soybean, preparing the launch of Preceon Biotech in corn. We are planning the launch for Bollgard as well. Bollgard 4, HT4 ThryvOn.
That is a very unique launch as well. At the same time that we are advancing some new. We just announced the biofuel as an example. That was very cool to see. Next seasons, we are very confident and especially soybean would be really great to see what will happen in the market. We are confident on that one.
If you think about everything going on in the world too, like, there's a lot of views being expressed, doesn't mean it's gonna be true, that, you know, with what's going on in the world, crop input prices, you're gonna see farmers apply less fertilizer. You're gonna see yields go down. You're gonna see, excuse me, yields go down, production go down, higher crop prices next. That's just a view. Doesn't mean it's gonna be true. You have to plan all these scenarios.
Oh, yeah.
Do you guys have a view on what, you know, this fall, this Brazilian season, this fall, next spring might look like in the U.S. in this environment?
It's fair to say that it's a lot of uncertainty right now. The market, you have more uncertainty. It's hard to predict because of the first thing that you're gonna hear is how long will be the duration of the war in the Middle East, right? If you think about North America and especially Latin America, as you're saying, that will be impacted on the next season. This is a little bit that. The farmers will do, and we saw that in the market, right? The first thing that they will do, and they will hold on equipments. They will be very cautious about any renewal of equipments. Second, they will do some of the trade-off in terms of crops. Just remembering last year, U.S. planted 98 million acres.
This year it's 95 million acres, around that, as Brian said, so there is a shift to more soybean. They will try to maximize or rationalize the use of fertilizers. It's a very big question mark about Latin America, Joe. I think that the Brazil is especially on that one. The duration of the war could impact more of that one. Glad to see that in our business in seeds innovation and in crop protection, the farmers, of course, they need to control the disease or weeds and insects and they normally go for the seed innovation. That's still on track to the order banks that we have. I think the key watch-out is the Latin American impact of the war. What is the next evolution of the war in the Middle East?
Is that gonna, I mean, I think you're due to put out seed price cards in Brazil?
in a week or two, or now? Are we due for it?
It's still a little bit early. You can normally, you're gonna see the starting season is September, October, but they would do mainly June, July.
It's June?
Yeah
I mean, right. Is that going to weigh on your strategy on crops?
No.
Reductions and stuff?
No, again, I don't wanna minimize the impact of the situation for the farmers, right? This has also an implication. If commodity price is better, if the market conditions is good, if farm economics is better, it's of course has an impact. Again, as we base a lot of the, this, and when we anticipate 2026, we put a lot of emphasis on bringing the new germplasm to bring the yielded value. We feel confident about the plans that we have for the pricing as well in Brazil.
Let's talk about 2027. You've got Vyconic, which I think is very, people are very excited about that. Can you talk about what are the puts and takes on 2027 for your business with Vyconic? Maybe you won't get as much licensing revenue 'cause you had a bit of a one time thing with, from Corteva this past quarter. Can you talk, and then, you know, normal price mix lift, things like that. Will Vyconic, will we see a step-up in price mix lift in soybeans? Like, what are the main puts and takes in 2027?
We had this year on soybean, and this is helping our results because of the getting back the label, right? We are launching SmartStax PRO, the new label, new herbicide, in Q2, and we're gonna see that impact on Q2. For 2027, still early to get details on that one. What I would say is that this is why we designed the plan last year on the combination of the two factors. We have innovation, but 2027 is not, when we are launching Vyconic, you don't have large acre, r ight?
Is it, like, 1 million acres? Is that what that is?
No, it's not that one. It's, especially 2027, is the beginning of that.
Less?
Should be less.
Okay.
At the same time, the margin also expansion is driven by the savings that we have. When we announce the closing of a site, as you all can imagine, you don't just close the site, you have the supply agreements, takes 1 or 2 years to realize that gain, and this will come. A lot of the EUR 1 billion savings is to help the short midterm here, while we accelerate the innovation on the mid long term here as well. This is the combination of that. That's why we are very, the entire organization's highly focused on the execution of the 5-year framework, because we need a combination of innovation and the discipline on the execution on the savings.
What's the best ramp analogy for Vyconic? Is it Xtend? Is it Intacta a decade ago? Like, what's the right one?
Help me.
Yeah, I can certainly help with that one. Maybe just to set the stage, the North America soybean market is essentially went from single herbicide tolerance to now it's a three-way herbicide tolerance, and what we'll be bringing forward is a five-way. As I have a chance to travel across the marketplace, a marketplace that I've enjoyed working in for now a couple decades, Joel, is the single question farmers ask is when.
They are ready to go. Now, how fast? You can look at past trade conversions as a really good insight of how fast farmers will switch. What makes this one especially unique is that we've been building the germplasm base, so when we go, we'll have from triple zeros in the north all the way down to maturity group sixes. Now you have full genetic availability, five modes of action, and farmers are excited. They're excited for adoption. They're ready to go.
If you could think about that germplasm breadth, it's bigger than we had on the last two or three launches. It's the biggest that we ever had. Still a lot of work to do. Another very important element that we are working, 50,000 farmers in U.S. today represents roughly 50% of the market. We're working very close with those farmers as well, and some of them are helping us, what we call Groundbreakers. They are helping develop the technologies. That's a close relationship with them as well that will help on that equation.
How do you manage, like, if the 2,4-D resistance, so now you're gonna, you know, be up against, well, major competitors have that for a number of years. How do you manage? You know, so you've got competing technology and that mode of action. You don't wanna kill the market for price. Like, how do you kind of balance trying to get share, not trying to kill price? How do you balance that?
Let me start, and Brian will help me here. One of the key things that we hear from the farmers is that one. To date, he needs to decide how he will control the weeds when he's deciding the planting, right? If we go for 2,4-D or go for dicamba platform, this is a little bit of decision, always farmers would prefer to go for the highest germplasm, the highest yield germplasm that can help. That's the beauty of Vyconic. This decision-Farmer can take when the weeds is in the field, depending on the rainy season, when it's there. This is one of the key element of Vyconic versus the platforms in the market. This is one of the key elements that I feel will help on that equation.
Yeah. Joel, we're kind of thinking about Vyconic. It's a good example of, step number one is we need regulatory approvals. That continues to progress in Europe. The single's approved, the stack's underway. In China, the seed's in country doing studies. That continues to advance. What I would like to highlight is the commercial infrastructure that goes right alongside the innovation that we're putting in place as well. Here's a fact that has proven true from decades past. We'll be looking for innovation absolutely moves market shares. Now, what we're doing is in this example of the U.S., we are down to about 50,000 farmers that farm over 0.5 a cres. There'd been pretty significant consolidation.
To ensure that the innovation is fully realized on farm, really two critical steps. Number 1, we are putting technical advisors directly on the farm to help prescribe field by field how to maximize that innovation. Now, what's powering these folks is data and AI. Maybe just to lay that out, as Mike Graham was here 1 year ago, our head of R&D, we do have the largest R&D engine which produces a tremendous amount of data. You can now, through our digital twin, we can simulate every yield environment, growing environment that a farmer's gonna produce that crop in. You take our data plus our unique asset of FieldView, which we have another 10 years of farmer's own data, which is the number one trusted source.
You stitch those together with AI, we can make absolutely the best agronomic recommendation for the grower. Now you can put the innovation itself with an enhanced go-to-market, we're highly confident in the adoption. Vyconic's one. We can talk about Preceon or others as well.
Are you pushing more direct to farmer channel in North America?
No, we are working with the partners, and they will be a great combination of that. A good example on Short Stature Corn. I know that Nutrien was here. I was with them in Canada recently. We talk about we seed, they feed, and the combine maximize the yield for the farmers. We saw with the Groundbreakers this year, I was with the farmers in Austin this year. The Groundbreakers, the ones that are developing the technology with us, they had an average of eight bushels per acre advantage versus the traditional system, and that comes from the combination of additional density, fertilizer, fungicide management, and this is the system that we are working with them.
What we are doing as well is that our organization is going also to the farmers, these 50,000 farmers, to help that recommendation precisely. This is a partnership, but we are taking that approach that is very important for us in U.S., in Brazil, Argentina, in many markets that we play.
Let's talk about crop chem CP, glyphosate, not glyphosate. What are the kind of drivers in that market right now we're seeing this year? A lot of things going on in the global cost to base and logistics.
Let's talk about the core crop protection market. A lot of uncertainty again. It's a little bit of if you take a look on the, on the prices in the market, you're gonna see some of the Chinese prices increase because of the oil, because of the cost to produce. The duration of the war will define if this is like a short-term impact, if this will stay longer. That's a little bit of something that we are watching very close. Again, the capacity is still there. This is not a supply issue. It's more a cost issue that you're seeing that. On our crop protection, what we are doing, we are using this year a lot to execute our 5-year framework.
This is why we are pruning the portfolio. We are exiting some of the AIs. We are adjusting some of our footprinting product supply. We have important launches to have in the second part of the year, especially starting in Q2 with Trilex, the new herbicide in U.S. Also we have Planexus expansions and new launches in Latin America as well. Our Latin America business performance this last year was coming from those innovation and will happen this year as well. What I think it's important is that we are, for us is we are watching a little bit of the dynamic of the raw materials increase for the next season.
Because what we are producing right now will impact next season, that's something that we are watching because Guru will be the first one to reinforce, we have an impact on our inventory and cash probably, Guru, on that one and potentially then next year, right?
Yeah. I can build on that. I think, you know, a lot of it is predicated on duration of the war and how long supply chains take to normalize. For sure, what we have seen is an impact particularly the petrochemical supply chain cost base. It's like a structural inflation that, you know, you see with Chinese producers. You know, some of it coming to us, particularly materials that are pegged to energy prices. I think the longer, you know, oil stays at, you know, $90 a barrel or above, you know, we will start to see implications for sure.
It's hard to quantify exactly how much, but I think directionally, I would say, we will have less pressure on earnings this year, or if there is, we will probably be able to manage or mitigate at this point in time. We will certainly start to see costs flowing through inventory and pressuring for the back half of this year.
Are you seeing like could this be a positive on the CP side in that you're raising the floor prices? Of generic, excuse me, the cost of generic producers making it harder, especially glyphosate and other ones, making it harder, more expensive then to get product around the world. Is this not a good thing for you? Am I off base?
Could be. Could be. I saw some of the comments on the market about that one. You could have a short-term opportunity here, again, I would be the first one to hope that the duration of war is shorter as possible because the implication for the farmers in the other hand is really bad. You have a short term, a little bit of an opportunity here, but in other hand, you have the farmers' economics being impacted by the fertilizer cost, and this is not good at all. This is a little bit of the I think we are in all the hope that this war ends as sooner as possible.
I wanna talk about the pipeline. One more question we have to touch is, there's, you know, a lot going on in the glyphosate liability situation right now. Lots of near term catalysts and deadlines, or dates, excuse me. Maybe you could just talk about the latest?
Sure, sure.
And hopes.
When we did the last capital market day, we mentioned that 2026 was an important year for us to contain substantially the litigation on glyphosate. We feel that we made very important progress on that direction. The next 60 days are very important for us. We have the combination of the decision on the Supreme Court, and I feel that we have a very strong case to the Supreme Court. We have the support of many, many, hundreds of farmer associations, different associations playing on that one as well because of the importance of that for the U.S. market. We have the Supreme Court, and we have also the class settlement to be decided as well, the opt-outs by June, and by end of that to hear from the court as well.
A lot of actions, a lot of progress. Work to do. Next 60 days are very important. We have other measures that we are putting in place as well, legislative spaces and others, and other work. We feel that we have a good plan, a solid plan to contain litigation in 2026, and the next 60 days will be decisive on that one as well.
I get this question a lot, so let's say you're successful. Win the appeal, you win the class, everyone settles. Is there still any residual liability on glyphosate sitting there, and how do you size that?
That would depend on the amount of opt-outs that we're gonna have, right? That's why from the beginning when we designed the class action with the lawyers, we designed for a very high level of adherence, right? It's important that opt-outs is, as Bill said this week on the earnings call, close to zero, because then you really has a class settlement in place. We had important steps that we took in the last 15 days, 20 days with some of the discussions that we had, and let's see what happens in June 4th, is when we're gonna have the final opt-out period, and we're gonna hear more from there.
Okay, let's talk about your pipeline, and this is a bit of a interesting question. You wanna debate? Let's do the question. For those investors that are not sure if Crop Science can deliver on that pipeline you presented. On your innovation, your ambitions, what would you say to them?
Well, here is a great invitation for you. You made me this as a good opportunity. Put it on your calendar. September this year, we're gonna be in Iowa. Here is an invitation for all of you. Join us in Iowa in September. It's very hard to convey all the pipeline in few minutes here. I'm not even talking about biofuels, gene editing, agentic AI. If you combine the amount of 10 years of AI data that we have on breeding, on crop protection, on farmers, there is a huge potential here on agentic AI. We're gonna have in September in Iowa a one-day event with investors that.
September 2nd, right?
Yeah, exactly. You are invited to join us. We can go deeper on that one. As I said to you, what we have in the next 5 years, if you look to the number of launches that we have, the amount of innovation that is coming to the market, at the same time that we're putting the go-to-market to work and help and maximize that is really exciting. Plus, we're gonna share more as we need the progress on the foundation and the savings that we are putting. September 2, we're gonna have a great But if I leave you with one message, it's that working 30 years of an innovation industry, I've learned that you work with the farmers.
And the farmers are today, we have the Groundbreakers in corn, we have the Groundbreakers in soybean, we have the Groundbreakers for Intacta RR5 Plus in Brazil, and they're helping us bringing those products to the market. This is a very cool moment that we have with them.
Let's talk about Preceon, so the short stature corn. You've been talking about that for a decade. You have been careful thruoght. You have..
Biotech
Before the biotech. You had the conventional part of it?
The breeding version, yeah.
Thank you. You know, had to make sure that was the right thing, pulled it back a bit, wait for the trade or the biotech. Now you're rolling it out. Talk about how that has evolved your view of it. Is that gonna be the system? 'Cause it's a system. It's not just give a farmer a bag of seeds. Will it be more niche depending on it has to work on the right farm with the right conditions? Like, how do you see that now?
Yeah. I'm passionate about that one. Control me here or I will speak for 15 minutes on that one. I may impact the next session.
Yeah, it's Corteva.
Oh, okay.
It's all right. We'll roll right into.
Yeah.
Let's roll right in.
I may take 30 minutes now. No, seriously, on Preceon. I was with the farmers, myself and Brian. We have the Groundbreakers in Austin. We have all of them coming to Austin from the U.S., and we are working with them and the universities in U.S. as well. It's really unique. We are empowering farmers to maximize their yields. This is a core element here. You're bringing a technology that allows them to play with the system. Some of the farmers are reducing space of the rows. Some of the farmers are doing different fertilizers applications. Some of the farmers are doing different applications of fungicides, even intervals of applications of nitrogen. There is a powerful combination of a system, and the universities in U.S. is doing the same of analysis of different systems.
In the end of the day, this technology allows farmers what really they are great at. Is about bringing that technology to their own field and maximizing that yield, right, Brian? That's probably the emphasis here. If you think about the level of willingness to experiment that the farmers have, it's a good example of that.
Yeah. I'll give you an example. Of the corn crop that's going in the ground right now, this Groundbreakers group, it will be over 1,100 farmers that are putting Preceon in the ground right now. Then you kind of take it step by step. Just for a really quick piece on the product itself, yeah, it's two-thirds the height above ground, which brings all sort of extreme weather resilience. Equally important, it's a third bigger in root system. Now, think about moisture capture in different environmental conditions. What does that do? Step number one, we've committed that we are gonna deliver a recommendation on how to properly seed it, because intensity, so plants per acre, goes up because of this new system.
As plants per acre goes up, yield potential goes up, but that's where our route to market, our partners, our retail partners are right there ready to feed to that yield potential as well. We talk about the average of the eight bushels, but I would ask you to key into what Rodrigo said, optimizing the seeding, the feeding, protecting multiple really precision application as we go. There's a lot of potential. Where does it end up, Joel? We're pretty confident that if the yield environment is over 140 bushels, Preceon has a great product fit. It's really just those really droughty, dry, tough acres that maybe it probably doesn't fit, because literally you can make corn too short in that environment.
You're right on the scaling. We've been very thoughtful and measured with this breeding version to get the system right before we scale. There's a couple hundred thousand acres going in the ground right now. That's been doubling every year, so you can see we're gonna get to this inflection point here pretty quick.
Okay. Let's talk about gene editing. We are waiting for some right to operate in China, slowly going the right way. Is gene editing the future? How does that change your business, how you innovate, how you see competitors?
It's part of the future, for sure. One thing that we are seeing on gene editing is that is a combination of gene editing with breeding. This is a little bit how you maximize yield and you bring in soy and especially when we're talking about soy, corn, and cotton, is how you bring gene editing with the breeding, and with precision breeding, you maximize here the element. This is a combination of factors. And then, on top of that, you add the biotech traits that we were talking here, especially for the Americas market. That is clearly impactful technology for the future. Aside of that, agentic AI can really accelerate the innovation here. Sorry that you're gonna see a little bit we are excited about innovation.
This market innovation that really creates value for the farmers and create values for us. That's why we are that focused on that one. This is one, another one that we are very excited about.
You also recently announced, as you alluded to earlier, a strategic partnership with BP on biofuels. Talk about that opportunity.
Very unique. I came from a trip from Brazil where we have, like, today's more than 30 new sites for ethanol production of corn, second season of corn after soybean. If you think about here, you have not only the corn for ethanol, but we are bringing camelina, CoverCress , winter canola on the biofuel opportunity. We are very confident on that one. This is a midterm unique opportunity, the war, of course, and the price of oil is just exponentially impacting that one. This is very cool. We are very excited about new, this. If you're gonna hear much more about biofuel in the future.
Yeah.
If you-
Maybe I'll give another plug for September, 'cause we are excited about this one. Today, we use better than 80 million acres globally for biomass-based diesel fuel stocks. The trend line is clear. The globe is on a path to decarbonize, but it's hard. How do you electrify a ship or a plane or a train? That is where this biomass-based market is gonna fuel. By 2040, that 80 million acres, that market size doubles. Here's the trick, as Rodrigo laid out.
We've invested in these three crops of camelina, winter canola, and cover crops, because you need a diverse mix of crops to address all the unique growing environments here just in North America. This is just leveraging our core competencies of genomics, gene editing. Our cover crops is a gene edited crop that we'll approach. This expansion into biofuels and taking a leadership position is important on the front side with the farmers. But then Joel, as you highlighted, is you need to have an offtaker that is joining you in this journey. We've announced BP, we've announced our partnership with Chevron. We have a MOU working to a definitive agreement with a third one underway right now.
You wanna announce it today?
It's coming.
Not quite yet. It's coming.
Come to Iowa, Joel.
All right, I'll be September 2nd. I think this is very topical. I mean, what are the benefits of Crop Science being part of Bayer? What are the benefits of Crop Science being standalone?
That's a good, that's a common question. Again, as you, some of you were on the earnings call and Bill Anderson mentioned about that when we were in the last capital market day. He said, "Not now because we have these five priorities.
He said, "Not now, but not never."
Yeah.
That's what he said.
Yeah.
Not now, but not never.
That's fair.
Yeah.
Because we said we are focused on the bringing litigation to sustainable contain, the pipeline of pharma, the Crop Science, a 5-year framework, and the new operating model and adapt, and we are working on that. There is still, we made progress in all the 5, but we still have work to do, and I just mentioned about litigation as a one example. And we're gonna continue evaluate that one. What I can tell you is that Crop Science, we are in full cylinders. What we are doing on the execution of our 5-year framework, product supply, R&D, go-to-market, as we prepare our innovation to the launches that we are planning here. We're gonna continue on that pace, and that's something that we need to have the discipline to continue to do, but we feel confident about that.
I mean, we could see a world where this competitive landscape as we know it is much different in a few years. I don't know if Crop Science is part of Bayer, not part of Bayer. You've got BASF splitting up. You have Vylor and new Corteva. As Corteva breaks up, you have FMC, you know, maybe looking at selling things. I mean, do you see a world there's maybe consolidation in the crops, in the CP space? And what part would you wanna be in a consolidation, you know, environment?
Could be, Joel. I think there is, while we speak here, there's a lot of conversations in the market on that one. I need to tell something that I feel that is very important. When you think about value creation, I know that it sounds like, wow, you're saying that again. When it talks about value creation, I work on this industry for a while in different situations and different moments that we have, but in terms of very important value creation that you see, it's a very high correlation with innovation. In terms of when you go back, do analysis of the last 10 years, 20 years, or the next 10 years, I really see a very high correlation between innovation and value creation.
This is a little bit of the main measure for me. What I feel very strong about is that our priority is right now on that one. We are putting a lot of emphasis on our innovation, and you mentioned some of that we just touch about gene editing and agentic AI, and many of biofuels is another one. This is the engine of growth that we'll have. This is also for crop protection. Crop protection is a different business than seeds and traits. Of course it is, we are managing that different. We announced that in May 13 last year. A lot of the savings that I mentioned is in the crop protection business because it's needed. crop protection needs innovation.
You need differentiated products, and there will be a part of that market that is a generic that you need to be cost competitive, and you need to phase out products here, life cycle management. If you don't have innovation, you don't have a Xtend differentiated products, and then you basically become a generic company. That's challenging. Innovation plays always as a key element of this.
Gentlemen, see you September 2nd. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you.