Focus on strategic technologies and abandonment of the Frankfurt site
Bayer recently announced changes to its agricultural division in Germany. According to its press release, the Group is reorganizing the Crop Science Division's activities in the production and research and development of crop protection products in Germany.
According to its own statement, the traditional company sees this step as necessary to ensure the global competitiveness of this business division. The reason given for the measures is that Asian manufacturers of generic crop protection products in particular have built up large overcapacities in recent years. According to Bayer, these suppliers are pushing into the market with permanently low prices. According to the press release, their prices are sometimes below the manufacturing costs of crop protection products in Europe.
Location Germany
According to its press release, Bayer will focus more strongly on strategic, innovative technologies and products in its agricultural division in the future. The company says it intends to use these to differentiate itself from generics manufacturers.
As part of the measures, Bayer plans to divest its site in Frankfurt am Main. According to the press release, the Group will not continue its activities there after 2028. Some of the activities are to be sold and others relocated.
As part of this announcement, Bayer also announced that production at the Dormagen site will be leaner but future-proof. In addition, Monheim will be strengthened as a focused center for the research and development of crop protection products. This means that Germany will remain Bayer's most important research and development location for crop protection products worldwide, as the Group emphasizes in its press release.
Frank Terhorst, Head of Strategy and Sustainability in the Crop Science Division, says: "We are expressly committed to Germany as a location. However, in order to live up to this commitment in times of considerable challenges, we need to realign ourselves."