BERLIN — BASF presented a trio of farming solutions at the recent Fruit Logistica trade show that collectively are designed to offer greater value to growers worldwide, the company said at a media briefing on Feb. 5. During the briefing, BASF also announced the launch of Xarvio Field Manager for Fruits and Veggies, a digital crop optimization platform to support fruit and vegetable growers.
BASF brought together leaders from its vegetable seeds, crop protection, and digital farming solutions businesses to share how the company aims to support growers in delivering quality and consistency, all while helping them to do more with less.
“We believe there’s a huge future for genetics in seeds, but it’s not the sole solution,” said Maximilian Becker, senior vice president of BASF Nunhems, BASF’s vegetable seeds business. “That’s why we’ve bundled our experience here at Fruit Logistica. We want to offer growers a whole portfolio — to bring all the puzzle pieces together.”
“The thing that differentiates us is what we call ‘agronomic intelligence,’” said Konstantin Kretschun, global head of the Germany-based BASF Digital Farming, a stand-alone company founded 10 years ago, which develops and markets the Xarvio Digital Farming Solutions brand and products. Kretschun said BASF Digital Farming has acquired four companies since its inception that have led to the development of verified algorithms to predict plant growth, irrigation needs, disease and pest pressures and more.
While the company offers these digital solutions to farmers of soy, wheat, canola oil and rice, Fruit Logistica marked the official launch of Xarvio Field Manager for Fruits and Veggies. Paving the way to enter this new market was BASF’s 2022 acquisition of Horta, an Italian digital farming company with a 25-year track record of digital intelligence in growing fruits and vegetables in the most effective way, Kretschun said.
The company says it can already support the cultivation of table grapes and wine grapes, to be available from September 2025, to be followed by tomatoes and potatoes, and additional crops in the future.
Fruits and vegetables are a tremendously important business, representing more than 20% of the global market, said Johannes Weimer, vice president crop system fruits and vegetables and portfolio solutions fungicides. BASF’s solutions start with seeds, complemented by its crop protection and biologicals and supported by the third element — advising farmers how to grow more effectively by tapping into digital farming solutions, he said.
“What you see here are some of the core technologies that provide farmers processes to better grow fruits and vegetables,” said Weimer, who added BASF continually listens to growers to understand the trends and conditions it needs to meet — from higher-quality fruits and vegetables to driving Brix value to reducing inputs and carbon footprint — and then connecting the individual technologies it offers to create more value for the farmer.
Investing in R&D
When it comes to farming solutions, BASF is thinking and acting globally.
In the past 10 years, it says it has worked with more than 100,000 customers globally, across a multitude of crops and representing millions of hectares.
It’s also partnering with farmers in the indoor ag space, or as Weimer says, “protective cultivation,” where the company has seen increased demand from U.S.-based lettuce producers, in particular, who seek farming solutions to support their significant capital investments.
On the seed side, BASF Nunhems has a more than a 100-year history in breeding vegetables. It operates in 20 crops with some 1,200 commercial varieties and launches 70 to 80 new varieties every year, said Becker.
“Our market is very dynamic,” continued Becker, who says growers continually face new challenges in the form of diseases, pests, climatic changes and more. “We need to bring new innovations constantly to remain relevant and offer solutions for our market,” he said.
To remain competitive, BASF invests heavily in R&D.
“We spend 20% to 25% of our turnover — our annual turnover — in R&D,” said Becker. “It’s necessary to remain truly cutting-edge. Our philosophy is to do whatever possible to create genetics that are a fit for the future.
“On the breeding side, we have more than one-third of our employees working only in R&D, so they look really far ahead on potential new diseases,” Becker continued. “For us, keeping this innovation engine running with a lot of people that look very far ahead into what is out there in terms of diseases — of viruses that are not yet known — is very important. And of course, out of maybe 10 potential threats we detect, only one will materialize, but we need to prepare nonetheless.”
Becker points to two recent examples of how BASF’s investment in R&D is bearing fruit.
In India it launched a tomato able to “tolerate heat to a level that no other tomato has done before, [and] by that we eliminate a lot of waste that in the supply chain,” said Becker. “With ever-growing heat waves, particularly in that part of the world, a lot of produce is useless once it arrives at the factories,” because of damage brought on by heat and humidity in transit, he said.
BASF’s solution was to develop varieties with different skin thicknesses, better heat resistance and that require less water to grow. This year the company is poised to launch five new varieties of tomatoes, expanding its tomato brown rugose fruit virus-resistant tomato portfolio from 25 to 30 varieties.
“It’s amazing to see the power that comes from connecting our solutions,” said Weimer, pointing to another example in the processed tomato category, where BASF helped a grower to achieve higher yield, 25% higher Brix, a 40% improvement in water efficiency and a better carbon footprint.
Recognizing that labor shortages are another major challenge for growers, BASF Nunhems recently developed a variety of iceberg lettuce with an elongated neck that allows it to be harvested mechanically.
“That’s where we believe that genetics play a crucial role in dealing with the challenges of our food culture in the future,” said Becker, adding a great deal more innovation from BASF is in the pipeline for 2025.
