 Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's a pleasure for me to have the opportunity at the RSC 2018 to meet with you and to discuss on a topic that stands at the very heart of the company and myself. At Bayer, we sincerely believe these are very exciting times to be in agriculture and that technology and innovations from a variety of different fields will allow us to shape the future of agriculture to shape the future of rice. For more than half of humanity, rice is life. It's a grain that has shaped the history, culture, diet and economy of billions of people across the globe. Many still sleep on rice straw and offer rice to their gods. Rice is grown in almost all parts of the world, with a crop cultivated on one-third of all arable land worldwide. For many, the growth stage of rice marks the passage of time and season. Rice is a staple in the diet of more than half the world's population, not just in Asia, but also in the western countries. Can you imagine Italy without Risotto or Spain without Paella? When I first came to Singapore two years ago, I was told it is customary when you meet someone to ask if they have eaten. My niece, more specifically, the question is have you eaten rice today? That's a simple greeting, yet this underscores the importance of rice in the Asian context. Over 90% of the world's rice is produced and consumed in Asia. Rice is a key crop for this region and it is cultivated predominantly by smallholder farmers. For these smallholders, rice is not only their food. Rice is also their main source of income, their livelihood and the means by which they can provide for their families and send their children to school. By 2050, the demand for rice will double that what the world is producing today. What this means is that we need to produce more, with the same amount or even less resources than we have today. But rice cultivation is not without its fair share of challenges. Arable land is shrinking due to rapid urbanization and competition from other crops. The current methods of rice production is also extremely labor intensive. Added to these challenges, the lack of technology know-how and access is making rice farming a less attractive career option for future generations, with many youngsters actually preferring to work in cities. In addition, rice production thrives on a delicately balanced supply of water at critical stages. Too much or too little can be damaging. Did you know that as much as 5,000 litres of water is needed to produce one kilo of rice? And this is why rice cultivation in some countries has resulted in the rapid depletion of water table. And last but not least, climate change. A global topic that is impacting many aspects of our lives. Changing climatic patterns and shifting weather have had detrimental effects on rice production. We are seeing increased flooding in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, for example, which has negatively impacted rice cultivation due to the increased salt, content and submergence of paddy, through extended period of time. And we know that climate change will only make conditions more difficult in future. Added to all these challenges, we see of course abiotic and biotic stresses. Every year, the poor management of weeds, pests and diseases are responsible for up to 40% of yield loss. With more than 35,000 passionate employees at Bias Crop Science Division, who are all dedicated to solving the challenge of ensuring there's enough nutritious and safe food to feed the world. We know just how important technology will be to address one of the most pressing challenges of mankind. To increase food production by 60% by the year 2050 in a sustainable, in a very sustainable manner. Thanks to modern co-protection and technological advances, productivity of agricultural systems has improved significantly over the last five decades. Nevertheless, future advances in science and technology are required to address the many challenges facing global food supply still today. Because today, more than ever before, we aim for a well-balanced, sustainable intensification of agriculture. We want to, on the one hand, increase productivity and yield. On the other hand, we need to do that in a sustainable manner that will not negatively impact the health of our planet. This is a huge challenge and we can only meet this challenge if we think and act more innovatively and responsibly than what we have done in the past. And there are big opportunities because today we are seeing an unprecedented fusion of technology. The boundaries between the physical, biological and digital sciences are disappearing. Change is occurring rapidly and so is innovation and it has never been more needed. Digitalization will for sure be one of the biggest drivers of agricultural productivity and efficiency. Digital technologies can give farmers essential, timely, field-specific information from the selection of the right crop varieties and accurate fertilization or co-protection dose rates to exactly determining the ideal time for co-protection measures and recognizing plant stress factors at a very early stage. With this decision, decision-making can become sharper, smarter and much simpler. By combining the power of the farmer's instinct and experience with cutting-edge technologies such as satellite imagery, wearable application algorithms, high-tech sensors, smart phone and tablet applications or even GPS, a farmer can make best informed decisions. Compliance with regulations and documentation of activities will be made simpler, more accurate and more traceable. And while doing so we can help better to protect the environment. Water bodies as well as non-target areas will be better protected through intelligent application of regulatory requirements within the digital farming recommendations. In other words, digital farming accelerates our ability to increase crop yields in a very sustainable manner, enabling the perfect equilibrium between economic success and environmental sustainability. It captures the potential of every hectare. Farmers can understand, for example, how much seed to plant per hectare based on how much the soil in the area can actually digest. It helps to make every drop count. With digital farming, farmers use only exactly what is needed, thereby reducing the environmental footprint of farming. And it enables more solution-oriented interactions with farmers. Data and analytics drive economic and sustainable outcomes for farmers, enabling them to maximize their return of investment. Coupled with digital farming, new breeding techniques, of course, will also bring significant benefits to society, farmers and the environment. Plant breeding is aiming to increase plant diversity using crossing and selection to create plants which are equipped with beneficial characteristics, such as being able to withstand pest and disease attacks, staying fresh on the shelf for longer or taste better and producing a reliable yield. As a result, these plants are better fit to the need of farmers, retailers and consumers. These methods can significantly cut the development time of new plant varieties to less on what it is today. This will enable plant breeders and farmers to better adapt to the quickly changing climatic, environmental and socio-economic conditions. Many of us believe that the next global step change in agriculture will be through innovations driven by technology. Taking advantage of the latest developments in the biological, chemical and data science to develop new solutions that better meet the needs of the world's farmers, big and small. Farmers can, in turn, increase their productivity, support a more sustainable environmental footprint and benefit from a better return of investment. We at Bayer believe that this is achievable. From the invention of aspirin to the first synthetic insecticide, for more than 150 years Bayer has used scientific ingenuity to develop products to improve the lives of people all over the world. Of course, the challenges facing global food security is too great for one company to solve alone. And we would be naive, even arrogant, to think so. This is why we engage in different forms of partnerships to increase the probability of success, be it in public-private partnerships, open innovation, venture capital, food chain partnerships, and so on. We aim to create an innovation engine so that the next generation of farmers can benefit from a broad set of solutions to meet their current and future needs, including enhanced solutions in seeds and trades, digital and crop protection. For smallholder farmers, Bayer is investing in digital technologies in the areas of drone seeding of hybrid rice and the application of crop protection inputs. We have launched FarmWise, a smallholder farming-oriented mobile digital platform that provides farmers with relevant ergonomic information and advice to enable them to perform critical tasks exactly when they need it. Since the global launch of the first version of FarmWise in May this year, we have witnessed a tremendous growth in the number of users, with at least 10% of the users using the app every day. FarmWise is also one of the fastest growing global apps in the digital agriculture domain on the India Play Store, Google Play Store for the past one year. We have plans to broadly launch FarmWise in India in 2019, with additional expansion plans in the future for Asia, Africa, and South America. Please allow me now to elaborate how and why innovation in very different fields is so important to help FarmWise. Smallholder farmers produce 70% of the world's food, but are currently often missing access to crucial services and resources throughout the entire value chain, including economic know-how and knowledge, access to finance, and access to markets. Supporting sustainable agricultural development in rural areas with smallholder farmers brings a lot of community benefits. It is an effective way to fight poverty, improve nutrition, increase the standard of living, and thereby allowing more opportunities to invest in education and economic development. There are more than 400 million smaller farmers in Asia, and their fields are in most cases smaller than the size of a football field. On these small plots of land, they produce almost half of the planet's food. Thus, it's no exaggeration to say that today, smallholder farmers and their families are actually the people who feed the world. Agricultural development is two to four times more effective at reducing hunger and poverty than any other sector, and that development benefits everyone. When farmers have more income, they can send their children to school, invest more in their farms, and produce safer and nutritious food for the society at large. One of the key objectives at Bayer is to promote sustainable agriculture and best agricultural practices to improve the livelihood of these smallholder farmers. It's a tall order, and as you all know, meeting the needs of smallholders who have diverse needs is a big challenge that requires a multi-stakeholder approach. The Better Life Farming Alliance is, which we are launching in Asia for a rise, one such commitment from Bayer with our partners. Those are for the Better Farming Alliance, IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, NETAFIM, in the immigration area, and Swiss Recorporate Solutions. Better Life Farming is an alliance of leading private sector companies providing holistic and innovative solutions that enable smallholders in the developing world to grow their farms into sustainable businesses and improve the livelihood of rural communities. Together with multiple partners, the Alliance offers a comprehensive approach that covers planting seeds, precision irrigation, crop protection, finance, and insurance. All tailored to the specific local and cultural needs of smallholders who farm less than two hectares of land. We have started pilots in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. This year alone, we have engaged with over 8,000 farmers covering nearly 10,000 hectares. Results of these pilots showed an overall increase in the farmer's net income, with one of the most promising results from the Philippines, which showed an increase of almost 60% in yield and almost 200% in the net income. And we have seen benefits not just to the farmers, but also in terms of valuable learnings for us, which we can take as we look to scale up our effort and adapt the model to countries and regions. For example, we found that in most of the Southeast Asian countries, the smartphone penetration in rural areas is less than 20% up to now. So we need to look at intermediate solutions, such as the use of SMS and contact centers, to bring solutions to these smallholders. These pilots are very resource-incentive and we need to explore different ways to improve efficiently and reach out to more farmers, of course. And we see partnerships as a critical scale-up in a sustainable way. And to this end, we continue to actively seek out like-minded partners who have the same vision and commitment as us to develop holistic and scalable approaches that continuously evolve according to the needs of the farmers. I've just outlined a couple of examples to illustrate that there are many different areas within agricultural systems that can be shaped for the better through innovation. This requires substantial efforts in research and development, and it requires also very, very strong partnerships. By the way, already today, we are investing 2 billion euros every year in our agricultural R&D alone, by far the largest research and development spending in the agricultural industry. Our committed team of more than 8,000 researchers and scientists worldwide is working relentlessly with a firm belief that innovation is crucial to challenges that address or face the global food system. The time, money, energy we are investing in today will mean a whole new world of promise for agricultural food production to improve people's lives in the future. Yes, the obstacle before us is daunting, but we faced greater obstacles before. We genuinely believe now more than ever that we can sustain the health and well-being of the global population. We believe we can do it without impacting the environment. What is needed now more than ever is a holistic approach that recognizes the critical commonalities amongst all of us, and the commonalities of health in our personal lives, from the food we eat up to the food the way it is produced, to the way we view our world and view one another. In much the same way, we need an approach that harnesses the valuable lessons across all scientific disciplines into one common understanding that will reshape the world. This is to us what shaping the future of agriculture through innovation is all about. Our goal is to help farmers to continuously foster innovation and to shape the future of agriculture toward a better, more sustainable future by developing solutions that address their most pressing challenges. If we find new ways to produce abundant and healthy food for all the people on this planet, without harming our environment, we will also be able to substantially contribute towards protecting our natural resources and achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Thank you very much for your kind attention. My colleagues at Bayer and I look forward to a fruitful discussion with you at the RRC 2018. Thank you.