Australia is the world’s eighth-largest producer of sugar cane, and the third largest exporter of cane sugar. However, the country’s 4,000 sugar cane farmers have a troublesome insect pest to deal with. Fortunately, Bayer CropScience’s Confidor Guard offers an efficient solution to the problem.

Small seed, great need: major crops such as wheat and rice start life in the field as tiny, inconspicuous seeds – which nevertheless have high expectations to meet. For the world’s population is growing, and the demand for food with it. In future, these crops must produce higher yields than ever before on less available farmland if there is to be any guarantee of food security. Using biotechnological methods, Bayer CropScience’s researchers are working in their laboratories around the globe to give the crops new power – so they can do what’s needed in the field.

The more delicate the fruit, the more susceptible the plants are to pests and diseases. And when it comes to their growing environment, cocoa trees are very choosy. Only the warmest and wettest tropical regions will do – such as those found in the Ivory Coast, Brazil and Indonesia. From there, the precious beans are transported to Europe and North America, where the most chocolate is consumed – in puddings, as mousse, in champagne truffles, as chocolate bars or in chocolate nuts. There is no limit to the diversity of expression of the chocolate’s seductive sweetness.