Bengaluru - Bayer CropScience Limited has signed a partnership with BigHaat, a leading agri-input e-commerce platform to enable last mile delivery of Bayer's seeds and crop protection products directly to farmer's doorsteps.

The partnership will support farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala and focus on paddy, cotton, corn, chilli and horticulture crops. Besides access to the entire range of Bayer's agri-solutions from seed to harvest, farmers can also avail crop-specific agronomic advisory through BigHaat's Agristore digital platform.

Set up in 2015, BigHaat is one of India's leading agri-inputs e-commerce platform, providing a wide range of quality inputs including seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, nutrients, farm implements and crop advisory to over 3 million Indian farmers. Besides product listings, review, order placement and doorstep delivery of products, BigHaat's cognitive intelligence-based technology offers farmers real time, image-based disease & pest diagnosis and crop stage-wise advisory for over 80 crops and enables them to choose the right agri-inputs and the technical know-how for safe and effective application. Farmers without smartphones can give a missed call on 180030002434 to receive a call back from the customer call center and receive advisory on the phone or schedule a field visit from crop agronomists.

'With changing grower needs, the Go-to-Market approaches in the Indian agri-input industry are steadily evolving. Rising digitalization has paved the way for dynamic shifts such as the use of e-commerce platforms for purchase of agri-solutions. Bayer's partnership with BigHaat is a strategic collaboration to provide farmers diverse choices beyond the traditional services they usually rely on,' said Simon Wiebusch, Chief Operating Officer for Bayer India's Crop Science Division. Elaborating further he said, 'Bayer is continuously looking at partnerships across the agri value chain to enhance customer centricity. We want to create a hybrid eco-system where traditional and digital marketplaces co-exist with the common aim of providing farmers with greater choice.'

'At BigHaat, we are on a mission of 'Transforming the Future of Farmers' by digitizing the pre-harvest journey for farmers and building an efficient agri value-chain harnessing the power of data, science and technology. We are very excited about this strategic partnership with Bayer, which is a giant step forward in enhancing India's agri eco-system and improving the profitability for farmers,' said Sateesh Nukala, CEO and Co-Founder of BigHaat.

About Bayer

Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to benefit people by supporting efforts to overcome the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development, and the Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2019, the Group employed around 104,000 people and had sales of EUR 43.5 billion. Capital expenditures amounted to EUR 2.9 billion and R&D expenses to EUR 5.3 billion.

Contact:

Saswati Panigrahi

Tel: +91-9867558824

Email: saswati.panigrahi@bayer.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports, which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.

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