Silal and Bayer announce partnership to drive innovation in agriculture

Silal and Bayer have joined forces to "strengthen the agricultural landscape in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)" by addressing climate change as a central concern. The partnership was announced during a Collaboration Agreement signing ceremony during the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in Dubai, attended by key public and private sector stakeholders.

According to the companies, this partnership represents a significant milestone in the journey to advance best-in-class agricultural practices, especially under the UAE's challenging climate conditions, which are only expected to intensify due to the ongoing threat of climate change.

Together, Silal and Bayer "will enhance the capabilities of local agronomists, promoting an environment conducive to innovation and agricultural excellence", taking advantage of BayG.A.P, Bayer's training program. The program encompasses modules on essential topics such as integrated pest management, safe use, crop protection products, application technology and irrigation. Program implementation envisages following a train-the-trainer approach. In the first stage, agronomists and rural managers will be trained. In the second stage, these trainers will extend capacity building efforts to potentially reach over 300 producers in the UAE who are part of the Silal network.

Another key aspect of this partnership will be comprehensive vegetable seed trials. These trials will cover a wide range of tomato, cucumber and melon seed varieties, each meticulously tested in a variety of medium-technology open field and greenhouse settings. Additionally, these trials will incorporate a range of over 30 vegetable seed varieties and will aim to investigate how these varieties perform under challenging desert growing conditions, assessing their increased crop resistance, quality and shelf life characteristics.

The research and data collected from these trials will not only benefit agricultural practices in the UAE, but will also play a crucial role in informing agricultural practices in regions of the world facing the challenges posed by climate change, especially rising temperatures in combination with high humidity levels, also known as wet bulb temperatures.