Bayer to invest EUR 220 Mn in new R&D facility at its Monheim site in Germany

This is the company’s largest single investment in its Crop Protection business in Germany.

Bayer significantly strengthens its commitment to innovation in regenerative agriculture with a EUR 220 million investment in research and development (R&D) at its Monheim site. This is the company’s largest single investment in its Crop Protection business in Germany since the founding of the Monheim campus in 1979. The new Product Safety complex with labs, offices, and a greenhouse area offers space for approximately 200 employees. Its principal focus will be on developing the next generation of chemicals for a sustainable future and enhancing the environmental and human safety of Crop Protection. The new facility will boost Bayer’s efforts to become a major contributor to regenerative agriculture by developing and bringing to market new Crop Protection solutions which have even better environmental profiles than those currently available and will play a key role in significantly reducing agriculture’s impact on the environment.

“Looking into the future, we must radically transform today’s farming systems and switch to regenerative agriculture practices that produce more with less, while restoring more. There is a high demand for pushing beyond established standards in safety to unlock breakthrough innovation and Crop Protection solutions with better environmental profiles,” said Dr. Robert Reiter, Head of R&D at Bayer’s Crop Science Division.

The investment is also a clear commitment to Europe as a base of operations as well as one important cornerstone of Bayer’s Future Concept for Germany. “Even in times of economic uncertainty, we are laser-focused on innovation and future technologies,” Dirk Backhaus, Head of Product Supply at Crop Science, pointed out. “We have a long track record of investing into research, development, and production of safe chemical products for agriculture, and we’re eager to leverage our world class expertise in Germany to shape the future of regenerative agriculture here and around the world. The new facility at our Monheim site is a shining example of precisely that: Investments in future technologies, modern facilities, and, most importantly, our people.” Over the past three years, Bayer has invested EUR 180 million at its Dormagen site, with a focus on expanding production capacities for modern Crop Protection.

 The opportunity to invent better, climate neutral and environmentally benign Crop Protection products is huge and aims to strengthen Bayer’s global competitiveness. As such, this investment also reflects Bayer’s commitment to the innovative capacity of Germany and Europe. The anticipated construction period of the new Monheim facility will be around 3 years. Full commissioning is planned for 2026.

The new R&D facilities will be an important cornerstone of Bayer’s new innovation approach for Crop Protection. Already today, Bayer’s product portfolio ranks very well in terms of environmental impact. But the company is strongly committed to reducing it even further and pushing beyond established standards.

“With our new disruptive innovation approach – what we call CropKey – we are now designing molecules instead of selecting them,” said Rachel Rama, Head of Small Molecules at Crop Science. “This is based on a discovery concept which allows us to create solutions based on the predefined safety and sustainability profiles that go above and beyond current standards.” Data science, early safety screenings, modeling and artificial intelligence are crucial elements that enable our top scientists to create the next generation of Crop Protection, taking advantage of massive amounts of data and machine learning and setting a new benchmark. “With our investment in Monheim, we are now building a new data powerhouse in a high-tech work environment that will be highly attractive for our researchers and future top talents.”

The new innovation approach to Crop Protection is also clearly aligned with Bayer’s sustainability commitment to reduce the environmental impact of Crop Protection products by 30% by 2030.

This is the company’s largest single investment