Ideas to Make a Change

Social Innovation

Innovating ideas and business models which can also have a powerful social impact is an important element of our innovation strategy. Bayer supports a variety of social innovation initiatives and partnerships.

African woman laughing. — We plan to positively impact at least 100 million people – smallholder farmers and their families.

With social innovations, the ultimate aim is to significantly improve the living conditions, incomes and health of smallholder farmers and their families. Introducing an innovative business concept that enables people to help themselves, makes an important contribution to sustainable development. Start-ups, through their specialized expertise in certain fields and their agility, can quickly advance innovations. At Bayer, we can then open the door for innovations and co-create an ecosystem of social entrepreneurs, NGOs and companies. Through making our expertise, resources, ideas and innovations available, we plan to positively impact at least 100 million people – smallholder farmers and their families – across the world in the longer term.

Through making expertise, resources, ideas and innovations available, Bayer plans to positively impact at least up to 3 million people in rural areas by improving their livelihood through better income, health and yield by 2020 and at least 100 million people across the world in the longer term.

Since the beginning of 2018, Bayer has already established three partnerships with social entrepreneurs to support social innovations and sustainable development in Africa:

myAgro
One Acre Fund
Pula

myAgro

Small amounts of money are
saved by smallholder farmers
in Africa via mobile phones.

How can a smallholder farmer in Africa save money for much needed fertilizer and seed without a bank account or access to a loan? The answer is provided through pilot projects in Mali and Senegal by the start-up company myAgro: Small amounts of money are saved by smallholder farmers in Africa via mobile phones in the form of scratch cards and exchanged for high-quality seed and fertilizer, and thus increase their incomes. With a funding of more than 600,000 USD, Bayer achieves to help expand this social innovation throughout regions of Africa. In addition, Bayer and myAgro support a worm control initiative that will provide free medication to smallholder farmer’s children, which will help strengthen families so that they can further develop their farms and escape poverty.

One Acre Fund

Farm worker with tablet in a field. — One Acre: improved poultry
products and digital
technologies.

The One Acre Fund is a non-profit social enterprise supplying smallholder farmers with the financing, tools and training they need to succeed. A joint project with Bayer aims to improve African smallholder farmers’ incomes and enable better nutrition for their families The donation of 700,000 USD will allow the initiative to pursue two innovative services for farmers in Kenya and Rwanda: improved poultry products and digital technologies. At scale, these innovations could reach nearly 600,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya and Rwanda.

Pula

Indian farmers caring for a dairy cow. — Insurance policies that
are specially tailored to the
needs of smallholders.

The innovative insurance company Pula offers insurance policies that are specially tailored to the needs of smallholders in Africa and India. This enables them to cover part of the risks associated with corn cultivation. The company works in eight countries across Africa and Asia, and in 2017 alone, it facilitated crop and livestock insurance cover to 611,000 farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Malawi.