By Jackie Pucci 

Shortages of key herbicides were already predicted to be a problem for the 2022 season. That situation has gone from bad to worse in a matter of days.

According to a Feb. 11 letter sent to customers from Dr. Udo Schneider, Bayer Crop Science Global Head of Active Ingredient Manufacturing, which CropLife (a sister publication to Cotton Grower) viewed, one of the company’s key raw material suppliers experienced a mechanical failure in its manufacturing plant, which is resulting in a substantial reduction in production rates.

As of now, given the supplier notification, Bayer expects repairs of the production line to take around three months. It was unclear from the letter which raw material(s) were affected.

On Feb. 14, CropLife spoke with Bayer spokesman Kyel Richard, who said that additional materials were sourced, and other efforts were made to limit the impact of the downtime from the supplier.

“We shifted some things around to help ensure that we get the products where they need them and to the growers that are using them at that time,” Richard said.

In addition, Bayer issued a statement Monday offering further details:

The crop chemistry market worldwide is experiencing historically tight supply due to challenging global trade flows, effects of the global pandemic and other forces which have continued to put pressure on already tight supplies.

Throughout these situations, Bayer has been working with our customers to help manage supplies and best meet their needs around the world.

Recently a supplier of a raw ingredient needed to produce glyphosate suffered a mechanical failure  which may have some short-term impacts on our production of the active ingredient to manufacture glyphosate.

Our supplier is on track to restore production, we’ve sourced additional materials and made other mitigation efforts to help best manage this situation.

We expect any impact to be marginal in terms of our annual glyphosate production.

The Roundup branded ag herbicide business supply will continue to be balanced through the current ongoing supply management efforts.

With the world’s leading crop protection portfolio of products, we will continue to work diligently with our customers to address their needs and help them have a successful season.