Syngenta is committed to a safe, healthy and fair working environment for all employees in our operations and for the farm workers across all farms we are associated with. Our products are vital to allow farmers to grow the world’s food, and they must be made, transported and used in a safe way. For this reason, we take responsibility for stewardship from the factories to the farms.
In our new Good Growth Plan, we go further than having broad aspirations: we set specific targets to demonstrate what we are doing and the difference we are making. We will measure our actions against these targets every year, and report on our progress annually in our ESG Report.
- Goal zero incidents in our operations
- Train 8 million farm workers on safe use every year
- Strive for fair labor across our entire supply chain
Working together to achieve Goal Zero
Goal Zero is our vision of zero harm to people and zero safety incidents across our operations. We aim to maintain the highest standards of health and safety. One of the ways we do this is by ensuring every employee understands their individual responsibilities.
We empower and equip leaders to take ownership of health, safety and environment (HSE) in their areas of responsibility. And while HSE is led by leaders, it is delivered by all employees, every day. We raise awareness around safety issues in regular safety and ethics shares in team meetings and townhalls.
Training farm workers to be safe
Farming is one of the world’s largest and most important sources of employment, and each year farm workers suffer a variety of work-related accidents, including exposure to chemicals. Ensuring that all aspects of farm work are safe is integral to our business model.
While we have a target of training 8 million farm workers a year, we train as many as possible on safe use of crop protection chemicals and other farm work risks. This is particularly important for smallholders in developing countries. We increase the reach of our training efforts by working with local partners such as government agencies, NGOs and industry associations, as well as with retailers selling our products.
Aiming for ethical, sustainable and fair labor standards
Offering workers fair and attractive conditions is non-negotiable. Syngenta applies fair labor standards and labor laws throughout our operations on farms and in production plants and we expect our suppliers to do the same. We have strict contractual requirements, such as prohibiting child labor, and help suppliers meet our standards through training.
We continue to work with our suppliers, partners and communities to improve the quality of life for workers and their families through ethical, sustainable and fair labor standards for all.
In 2022, we trained 12.9 million farm workers on the safe use of products. And 99.5% of our suppliers are now included in sustainability and fair labor programs.
See how we bring The Good Growth Plan to life
Shi Lijie is a farmer in China. She talks about how she is passionate about agriculture and trains farm workers on behalf of Syngenta.
Renukamma Umapathi, a farmer in India, tells us how she’s striving for fair labor in her community.
In Mexico, we train technicians from our partner organisation, CIMMYT, who then pass this knowledge on to groups of smallholders – reaching more farmers than we could alone.