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At Tech Hub LIVE 2025, Bayer’s Tami Craig Schilling joined CropLife’s Lara Sowinski for a Fireside Chat to share the story behind E.L.Y., Bayer Crop Science’s innovative, small language model built specifically for the agronomic space. With a farmer-first mindset and a deep understanding of both agricultural operations and digital technologies, Tami and her team are reshaping how agronomists and sales reps deliver insights in the field — one question at a time.

As the Vice President and Agronomic Digital Innovation Lead at Bayer, Craig Schilling brings a unique perspective to ag tech: she’s not only worked in agriculture for 35 years, but she’s also a farmer’s wife and mom. That intersection — between high-level corporate strategy and boots-on-the-ground farming — is what inspired the creation of E.L.Y., Bayer’s internal generative AI tool built to deliver fast, accurate agronomic answers.

“The rest of my story, and really the beginning of our generative AI product at Bayer named E.L.Y., comes from being a farmer’s wife,” said Craig Schilling. “I’ve spent 35 years of my career calling on ag retailers, working with seed dealers, and farmers — trying to provide the best products and help them through their production challenges.”

From her vantage point, Craig Schilling could see how hard it still is for farmers and agronomists to get timely, region-specific answers about products, timing, chemistry, and field conditions.

“When we looked at market research, we saw that product and agronomy information is still a big pain point. It’s not the volume — it’s figuring out what’s needed for a specific area, and when,” she explained. “A farmer makes hundreds of decisions a year.”

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With that challenge in mind, Craig Schilling and a small team at Bayer began experimenting with ways to reduce friction in accessing agronomic knowledge. But the realities of corporate funding cycles and limited in-house tech resources made traditional development difficult.