CEO, Bayer
Bayer CEO Bill Anderson on the State of the American Farmer | WSJ
From gene editing to herbicide-resistant plants, Bayer continues to stretch the limits of agriculture innovation. At WSJ’s Global Food Forum, Chief Executive Bill Anderson breaks down what each piece of technology means for the company and agriculture industry, as well as the legal obstacles they face. Mr. Anderson was interviewed on June 2, 2026. Photo: Taylor Glascock for WSJ
#Farming #Agriculture #WSJ
About Bill Anderson
Bill Anderson, CEO of Bayer, has been discussing the challenges facing American farmers, including high input costs and volatile crop prices, stating that many farmers are "at the end of their rope." He has also addressed the company's ongoing litigation over glyphosate, noting that Bayer has faced over 100,000 lawsuits and warning that without a solution, there will be no American-produced glyphosate. Anderson highlighted that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Bayer's case, calling it a "big milestone for American farmers." He also discussed the company's restructuring, saying Bayer has cut management by two-thirds, reoriented the firm to 90-day cycles, and placed 95% of decision-making at lower levels of the organization. Anderson reported that Bayer registered sales of €45.6 billion, core earnings per share of €4.91, and reduced net financial debt to €29.8 billion. He stated that the company is again proposing to pay only the statutory minimum dividend. Anderson also discussed Bayer's innovation pipeline, including a new insecticide called Clanaxis and gene-editing technology, while criticizing the European Union for blocking gene editing in plants. He said that if Bayer cannot prove it is the best home for its agriculture, medicines, and consumer health businesses, the company may have to change its structure.
Transcript (69 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
I
Interviewer0:00
I want to start by talking about the American farmer. I know they're facing a lot this year, high fertilizer costs, really volatile crop prices. What are you hearing from farmers here?
B
Bill Anderson0:15
Yeah. You said it. I mean, the input conditions, the market conditions are challenging. And I think for a lot of farmers, they're kind of at the end of their rope. So I have tremendous respect for what they do. I think it's one of the things we miss in our highly industrialized society that we have such a small percentage of the population growing the food for the rest of us, and so I think people kind of lose touch with what it actually takes to make it happen.
I
Interviewer0:57
And for the past five years, the government has stepped in to help farmers. Do you think a bailout is necessary again this year in the Farm Bill, and what do you expect?
B
Bill Anderson1:10
Yeah, I'm not the expert to say on that. But I do know that farmers deserve better than what they've been getting I think from society, you know, a fair deal. I think they've been, this idea that some have touted that farmers are harming consumers or something, I think that is a lack of understanding of what it takes to run a farm and the values that American farm families share and what it means to them to grow healthy food.
I
Interviewer1:49
And I think most people in this room probably know that Bayer sells seeds to these farmers. A few years ago, one of your competitors surpassed you in soybean seed market share. And I was going to ask what it takes to win back the American farmer, but I feel like you're kind of doing that now with advocating for them. So aside from advocating for the farmers, what does it take, with innovation or pricing, to win that back?
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Bill Anderson2:22
Yeah. Well, we're by far the market leader in corn, which is the biggest crop. In soy, we lost out a bit because we didn't have quite the right combination of traits, and we had a regulatory setback and that put us at a disadvantage. We've since reversed that setback and we're planning to bring out new trait packages starting next year. So I think we're very much on the climb up in soy, and very strong in corn. And I think in corn, just as an example, we have in the fields this year the breeding version of our new Preceon Smart Corn System.
I
Interviewer3:03
Short corn.
B
Bill Anderson3:04
Exactly. This is, that's not a very glamorous name, short corn, is it? But it turns out that corn growing 10 or 11 feet tall, that's not so handy when it comes to late-season storms.
I
Interviewer3:19
Strong winds.
B
Bill Anderson3:21
Yeah, yeah. It also means that farmers often have to decide to preemptively spray pesticides because they can't get their sprayers out in the fields after a certain point. 'Cause the corn, once it gets over six feet tall, they really can't get their sprayers out there. So they're spraying chemicals, not knowing whether they'll need them sometimes, but just thinking, 'Well, we want to be sure.' So with our new short corn, they can do that anytime in the growing season, so they don't have to do that, which means less chemicals used, it means better resistance against storms, and then one of the benefits that we're seeing now is you can actually plant the corn more densely, so you could basically grow more corn on the same land. These are the kinds of innovations that, not only do farmers need this, but frankly, the world needs it so that we can feed a billion more people with the declining farmland that we have.
I
Interviewer4:16
Right. And when it comes to seed traits, what is the biggest need there that you're trying to solve for? Is it climate changing, or pests, or the ability to not require pesticides? What problem are you trying to solve with your innovation on seed traits?
B
Bill Anderson4:39
Yeah. Well, I mean, we're working on all of those things. We have seed traits already that convey, for example, resistance to certain pests, that make plants immune to certain herbicides. That's huge. If you look at America today, the vast majority of rogue crops are grown in a no-till system. Well, that no-till system is made possible by herbicide-resistant plants. And that's huge in terms of the energy it saves, the labor it saves, and the improvement on the land. Because basically when you till up the land, you're tilling up the carbon that's in the land, the rain comes and washes it, basically washes half of American topsoil out into the Gulf of Mexico. But now, with no-till cropping, basically you're keeping the topsoil whole. And so these are the kinds of advantages. But you asked, what are we working on now? I mean, a couple of things that are coming along, we can go deeper if you want, but things like nitrogen-fixing wheat and corn.
I
Interviewer5:46
Okay.
B
Bill Anderson5:46
So many of you know that beans have a property of pulling elemental or atmospheric nitrogen into the ground and making it usable, like nitrogen fertilizer, whereas, for example, corn and wheat don't have that property. We're working with gene editing to convey that. That could be huge in terms of cost savings.
I
Interviewer6:09
Because it would require less fertilizer.
B
Bill Anderson6:11
Less fertilizer, which is less energy production, frankly, less runoff of fertilizer into rivers and nitrification, so this is big. So that would be big for farmers, but also huge for the environment.
I
Interviewer6:25
And what about globally?
B
Bill Anderson6:27
Oh, yeah. Well,
I
Interviewer6:28
Would it change what crops can be planted where?
B
Bill Anderson6:32
It sure does. And for example, in poor countries, fertilizer is one of the number one items in GDP. I mean, if you look in parts of Africa and India, I mean, fertilizer is a huge government expense. They subsidize fertilizer so that the poor farmers will have enough fertilizer to grow the food they need, at least as much as they can.
I
Interviewer6:54
Right.
B
Bill Anderson6:55
So something like this is a tremendous innovation for people.
I
Interviewer7:00
And with innovation, there also can be consumer backlash. We've seen that lately. You're facing the most consequential litigation right now with your herbicide, Roundup, glyphosate. What does that... what do those court cases and that litigation mean for the future of Bayer Crop Sciences, and even the farming community?
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Bill Anderson7:28
Yeah. Well, it's really important to understand the basis on this. So we have a product that has been available for 50 years in the U.S. and around the world. It's been probably the most thoroughly studied crop protection chemical of all time. It's been reviewed and approved and re-reviewed by the U.S. EPA, the European Food Safety Authority, the English authorities, Australian, New Zealand, Japan, and so on. There's not a single regulatory body in the world that has labeled it as carcinogenic. In fact, just the contrary. But that doesn't mean that we can't have thousands of lawsuits. And this is, lest anyone in the audience think this is a Bayer problem, actually, Bayer is gonna deal with this, but this is an American problem. And I don't know if you guys realize this, I don't know, maybe you don't think it's your problem, but maybe we'll take a little audience poll. Is that allowed?
I
Interviewer8:35
Sure.
B
Bill Anderson8:36
Raise your hand if you think the litigation industry is costing your household, let's say, do you think $1,000? Who thinks it's costing your household $1,000 or more per year? Anybody? Okay. How about $2,000? Anyone? $2,000? $3,000? $4,000? Anyone? $4,000? Okay, keep, no, your hands should be up. I'm not joking. $4,300 per U.S. household, per year. And a lot of people in this room are probably above average, which means you're gonna be paying more than $4,300. And you might think, 'Well, how could that be? I mean, I know this is a problem for Bayer, but how is this affecting me?' Your car insurance. Maybe 50% of your car insurance premium is going to trial lawyers. Your home insurance. Again, probably 50% of your homeowner insurance, going to trial lawyers. Medical insurance. It's not 50%, thank goodness, okay. Maybe only 20%, or 15%. And so on. The cost of every product you buy. So if you take anything away from this, don't think, 'Oh, Bayer has a litigation problem.' Actually, you go out of here thinking, 'Hey, I have a litigation problem.' Think about that the next time you pay your insurance premiums.
I
Interviewer9:56
But, so, it seems like the goal for Bayer now is to be able to end the lawsuits and move on.
B
Bill Anderson10:04
Yeah.
I
Interviewer10:05
And is there a world in which you move on without glyphosate? Like, would you stop making it because the lawsuits don't stop coming?
B
Bill Anderson10:15
Well, we've said very clearly, if there's not a solution to the litigation problem on glyphosate, there won't be American-produced glyphosate.
I
Interviewer10:25
Why do you specify American-produced?
B
Bill Anderson10:28
Well, right now,
I
Interviewer10:29
Because if Bayer stopped making it,
B
Bill Anderson10:31
We produce roughly half the glyphosate for the world and the other half comes from Asia.
I
Interviewer10:36
Okay.
B
Bill Anderson10:37
Okay? And so far to date, Bayer's had well over 100,000 lawsuits. And how many lawsuits, anyone want to guess, how many lawsuits the Asian manufacturers have had?
I
Interviewer10:47
Zero.
B
Bill Anderson10:48
There you go, thank you. Zero. Okay? So this is basically America trial lawyers vs. America. So if you produce a product in America, you get sued, but if you import it from Asia, you don't get sued. And again, if anyone thinks this is a Bayer problem, I hope you come away from this discussion knowing this is not a Bayer problem; this is a problem for America.
I
Interviewer11:14
Well, and you also had mentioned that you feel like being open to such litigation could inhibit innovation in America.
B
Bill Anderson11:22
Oh! Let me give you an example. So we have a new insecticide called Clanaxis. I mean, I think it's what the world needs. You all help me. You know food, okay? This is an insecticide that works against things like whiteflies, piercing and sucking insects, these are devastating to crops all over the world. Any of you that has a garden, you know about piercing and sucking insects, okay? So this is very effective against these insects, but it spares bees and butterflies and other helpful insects, all right? And the dose, get this, the dose of Clanaxis, recommended dose, is six grams per acre. Six grams. This is probably, I don't know, a couple hundred grams worth of water in here. Six grams is like the end of my pinky, per acre, okay? Now, that is available already in South America, but it's not available yet in America, and,
I
Interviewer12:20
So is the EPA not moving fast enough? Where is it getting stopped?
B
Bill Anderson12:22
Well, they're working on it. But again, we have such a litigious society now, and they get sued, everything they do. And so caution is warranted.
I
Interviewer12:34
Right.
B
Bill Anderson12:35
And by the way, manufacturers, we'd have to think twice about it. We have the Supreme Court ruling coming up on our question of preemption. Basically the question before the Supreme Court is, does an EPA label matter?
I
Interviewer12:47
Right.
B
Bill Anderson12:49
Or is it just kind of an interesting artifact, and actually people, everyone can kind of make up whatever they believe about a product in a court? And so this is why this matters for, not just for Bayer, not just for glyphosate, but this is a fundamental question for innovation in America.
I
Interviewer13:11
So, litigation aside, how is AI contributing to your innovation pipeline?
B
Bill Anderson13:19
Yeah, well, huh. This may be a little counterintuitive for folks, but I mean, we've been heavy, heavy users of AI, especially machine learning models but increasingly now large language models, because we're actually running the largest breeding program in the world.
I
Interviewer13:36
Right.
B
Bill Anderson13:36
And breeding has become very sophisticated because now we have the full genomes. And by the way, the corn genome is about 50,000 genes. Anyone know how many genes a human has? It's 20,000 to 25,000. So corn, believe it or not, has twice as many genes as a human, all right? And we are creating about 25,000 new genetic variants of corn per year. So we've got massive amounts of data and you need AI to process that data to make predictions about, for example, which variant might you want to test? Whereas other ones, you'd say, 'Nah, that's not even worth testing.' So we're using AI, well, we've been heavy users of AI, we probably have more data scientists per employee than any almost any company our size in the world.
I
Interviewer14:31
And is that, are you able to bring things to market faster?
B
Bill Anderson14:36
Oh, yeah.
I
Interviewer14:36
Yeah.
B
Bill Anderson14:37
Yeah, and the things we're doing, I mean, I'll give you another really concrete example. A company called CoverCress that is mostly owned by Bayer has been developing a weed called pennycress. They're making a cash crop out of it to produce, among other things, sustainable aviation fuel. And the beautiful thing is this is a crop that loves to grow in the winter in the northern part of America. So, you know, there's not that many crops that want to grow in the winter in the northern part of America, and this is one. But they had to change so much about it, 'cause it's a weed.
I
Interviewer15:13
Right.
B
Bill Anderson15:15
It has lots of weed properties that are not good. And they basically are using gene editing, which, CRISPR/Cas9,
I
Interviewer15:23
Right, right.
B
Bill Anderson15:24
And a lot of other high-tech tools to make this possible. And we have this in the field now. The first major harvest, 10,000 acres this spring were harvested.
I
Interviewer15:33
Wow. And gene editing has now been around for decades. Is it still the most innovative thing that we can do in agriculture? Or, and we're just getting faster at it? Or is there something next after gene editing that's gonna be as influential?
B
Bill Anderson15:53
So, okay, so biotech, so taking a whole gene from one species and putting it into another has been around since the '90s.
I
Interviewer16:00
Right.
B
Bill Anderson16:01
And we've had commercial crops for about 30 years with GMO. That's GMO, biotech traits. By the way, how many bad things have happened because of GMO? Anyone? It's easy, every question I ask, the answer is zero. Okay? So now we have 30 years of commercial experience with GMO. Gene editing is actually quite different, and it's newer. So it's only, someone could tell me when the invention was, but it's like two decades old or so, from the beginning. So it's pretty new. And the first plants with gene editing are now starting to make it into the commercial fields.
I
Interviewer16:38
Okay. And I want to ask if there's any questions from the audience. I think we have time for one quick question. Do I see any hands?
B
Bill Anderson16:51
You know, they're all, I think they're all thinking about how they're gonna deal with the insurance,
I
Interviewer16:55
Okay, we've got a question up here in the front. From Soren of Driscoll's.
S
Soren17:02
Yeah. My question was on gene editing. And so now the European Union has passed the updated regulation on modern gene technologies including gene editing, and the U.S. is now more regulated on certain traits from gene editing like disease resist and pest resistance and stuff like that. What are you doing to get the EPA to sort of harmonize with the European Union so that the advanced breeding techniques can be the same across Europe and the United States?
B
Bill Anderson17:32
Yeah, I mean, this is kind of late-breaking, 'cause the European Union has been opposed pretty steadfastly right along, and just in recent weeks, it looks like it's gonna go in the European Union. So yeah, we got some work to do in communicating with the regulators to make sure we have harmonized standards, 'cause it doesn't make sense to have arbitrarily different standards. So I'd say that work's really getting going now.
I
Interviewer18:02
Well, to add on to that, how is the MAHA movement here really affecting those efforts? Because now you have a movement that has been very much against a lot of pesticides that you sell, so are you able to also turn them around at all?
B
Bill Anderson18:25
Listen, we talk to everyone, because we have one planet. I think everyone agrees we need to feed the world. It's not okay for hundreds of millions of people to not have food. And so I think, in a way, we're all on the same side. Like, I'm an amateur gardener. I don't use any pesticide that I don't have to use. But when my orange trees are covered with black soot from scale or something, I gotta do something. And so I think we're all on the same side here. Nobody wants to use pesticides. They're not a luxury; they're a necessity. And we have to figure out how to get the safest ones, and how to reduce the use, and how to continue to make progress with technology so that we can avoid using chemicals in the future.