ForGround by Bayer Expands its Regenerative Ag Platform, Collaborates with Three New Companies to Provide Additional Benefits to Farmers

St. Louis, Feb. 15, 2023 – Today, ForGround by Bayer announced the addition of three new companies – Great Plains Ag, Sound Agriculture, and EarthOptics – to its growing network of resources and expertise to help farmers be successful in adopting and implementing regenerative agriculture practices. These innovative companies can help farmers unlock insights, additional benefits and resources enabling them to accelerate and adopt new practices.

"While interest in practices like reduced-tillage and cover crops have steadily increased in recent years, farmers still need robust support to be successful in exploring, adopting, and sustaining regenerative agriculture practices,” notes Leo Bastos, Head of Global Commercial Ecosystems, Bayer. “With a growing list of organizations that share our mission, we can help ensure more farmers have the resources, tools and benefits to be successful in implementing these practices and realize their return on investment.”

By bringing a diverse set of organizations together, ForGround by Bayer is delivering even more options to growers to help them mitigate risk, decrease input costs, optimize performance and unlock insights on their fields.

Today’s additions to the ForGround by Bayer platform offer cutting-edge tools and technologies to farmers such as:

• Great Plains Ag is a leader in planting, seeding and soil management equipment, providing farmers with access to solutions to support them in their regenerative agriculture journey.

• Sound Agriculture helps improve nutrient efficiency by activating the soil microbiome, boosting or protecting yield performance as farmers consider adopting practices like planting cover crops or optimizing nitrogen utilization.

• EarthOptics technologies create accurate, real-time data maps – including compaction, carbon, moisture, nutrients and more – that give farmers the insights they need to unlock the full potential of their farm’s soil.

Great Plains Ag Division President, James Shurts, believes joining the ForGround by Bayer grower support network aligns with the company’s business goals to put farmers’ needs first.

“Working within a broad network of innovative companies is the best way to ensure American farmers have access to our agricultural industry’s best insights, tools, and practices,” said Shurts. “Proper seeding is essential for a successful farm operation and growers are always looking for ways to optimize their production.”

A farmer-first digital platform, ForGround offers growers a variety of tools, resources, discounts and the potential to earn revenue through the Bayer Carbon Program (1) for adopting regenerative practices and connecting with businesses looking to advance their sustainability and carbon goals. Since its launch in August 2022, farmers have enrolled millions of acres in the ForGround by Bayer platform and it remains the only initiative in the industry that brings together a comprehensive suite of grower resources to assist the adoption of regenerative ag practices all in one place.

“I was initially interested in ForGround in order to grow regenerative practices on our operation. Last fall I ended up winning their La Crosse Seed sweepstakes” said Bryan Stanczyk, a corn and soybean farmer in Nebraska and a ForGround by Bayer member. “I look forward to expanding cover crops on my operation with the support of both La Crosse Seed and ForGround.”

Underpinned by the Climate FieldView™ platform, the leading digital farming tool in the industry which provides cutting-edge digital tools to help farmers more easily collect, store and view field data, ForGround by Bayer is working with more than 10 companies in different areas of focus. These companies – including ETS/SoilWarrior®, La Crosse Seed and Continuum Ag, among others – help provide broad expertise to both farmers and the program. For example, ForGround by Bayer also collaborates with organizations like Perdue Agribusiness to offer growers expanded revenue opportunities, and recently announced plans with Nori to turn farmers’ carbon-friendly practices into carbon removals that can then be sold on Nori’s marketplace, which, in turn, can help further establish carbon markets for farmers both now and in the future.

These collaborations underscore Bayer’s commitment to reducing potential costs brought on by the transition to regenerative agriculture practices by providing perks, incentives and rewards to help farmers adopt more sustainable practices. ForGround by Bayer is free to join and open to all U.S. farmers, whether they are exploring, growing, or expanding their regenerative agriculture practices. For more information, visit https://bayerforground.com/farmers/benefits.

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 help people and the planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. Bayer is committed to driving sustainable development and generating a positive impact with its businesses. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2021, the Group employed around 100,000 people and had sales of 44.1 billion euros. R&D expenses before special items amounted to 5.3 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

About Great Plains Great Plains Manufacturing, founded in 1976, employs over 2,000 people worldwide. It encompasses five divisions: Great Plains Ag, which manufactures soil management and seed placement equipment and other farm implements; Land Pride, which manufactures grounds maintenance tools such as mowers, rototillers, rotary cutters, dirt-working equipment, and construction equipment attachments; Great Plains International, which sells the company’s products worldwide; Great Plains Trucking, which operates a nationwide fleet of flatbed trucks; and Great Plains CE Division, which manufactures powered equipment for the construction industry. Great Plains Mfg., Inc., is headquartered in Salina, Kansas.

About Sound Agriculture  Sound Agriculture develops nature-based solutions for tastier, healthier and more sustainable food. Our breakthrough biochemical technology enables agriculture to adapt faster to climate change and evolving consumer preferences, creating healthier food that is also better for the planet. SOURCE®, our flagship product, activates the microbiome to give crops access to more of the nitrogen and phosphorus that exists in the field, improving yield and reducing synthetic fertilizer in corn by up to 50 lbs. per acre. For more information, go to https://sound.ag

About EarthOptics At EarthOptics, we see soil. Differently. GroundTruth Ag, Inc., dba EarthOptics, was founded in 2018 and has offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Arlington and Blacksburg, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Fayetteville, Arkansas. EarthOptics is an agricultural technology company developing next-generation soil-sensing technologies that give growers revolutionary insights into the physical characteristics of their soil. EarthOptics beat out three finalists and more than 100 international agtech startup entries to win the AGCO Innovation Challenge Award during the 2021 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit. We believe that below-ground precision and innovation in the soil space is long overdue. Our ultimate goal is to deliver point-of-care soil health insights – related to physical, chemical, and biological attributes of soil – in real time. To achieve this goal, we have assembled a team with diverse backgrounds in engineering, software development, geospatial analytics, data science, machine learning, and logistics and operations.

Additional Quotes for Reference

Sound Agriculture “We see a great opportunity to support improved soil health by participating in the ForGround by Bayer platform,” notes Kaitlin Fitzgerald, Vice President, Sustainability at Sound Agriculture. “And we are pleased to offer growers interested in regenerative agriculture a discount on our SOURCE® products to boost soil microbial activity and optimize crop nutrition.”

EarthOptics “The push for adopting regenerative agriculture practices continues to increase,” says Lars Dyrud, EarthOptics CEO. “These decisions are not taken lightly by farmers, and with technologies available from EarthOptics, farmers will have the proof points they need to determine how new management practices are impacting their operation and moving the environment forward.”

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.

Citations: 1 This Bayer Carbon Program described in this material is subject to the current version of the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement. The information is to aid in the understanding of the Bayer Carbon Program and does not change or modify the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement in any way.

The Bayer Carbon Program described in this material is subject to the current version of the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement. The information is to aid in the understanding of the Bayer Carbon Program and does not change or modify the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement in any way.

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