Investing in Asia's agricultural sustainability

Our commitment to stewardship and sustainable agriculture begins with the search for the ‘perfect’ product – biologically efficient, environmentally sound, applicator-friendly and economically viable. The plant science industry continually meets this daunting challenge by spending about US$200 million and 8 to 9 years on research and development for every new crop protection product released to the market. Our industry is in fact among the world’s most research-intensive and regulated business sector.

In addition, we make significant and continuous investments to ensure that our manufacturing processes are energy-and-water efficient, reduce waste, and improve workers’ health and safety. As our products are moved out from factories to distributors to farmers’ fields, we invest increasingly more money, people, efforts and resources to ensure responsible handling and use of the products.

The majority of our stewardship spending in Asia goes towards influencing behavioural and practice changes among distributors, retailers and farmers. Our aim is to achieve more effective and responsible product use, leading to better livelihoods, while protecting people’s health and the environment.  We extend our reach to a wide range of stakeholders, including farming families and communities, schools, health centres, agricultural departments, and local and national governments.

We could indeed put a price on everything we spend to fulfil our stewardship commitment for the region. But only our stakeholders could affirm the real value of stewardship to their own lives and the regional economies.