Collaborating for sustainable agriculture

We’ve been working together with The Nature Conservancy on projects that support sustainable agricultural practices

Syngenta and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a global environmental non-profit organization, have been working together for over a decade on projects that support sustainable agricultural practices.

In a new multi-year collaboration—Innovation for Nature—TNC and Syngenta will focus on business practices aimed at improving soil health, resource efficiency and habitat protection in major agricultural regions worldwide. It brings together Syngenta's research and development capabilities and TNC's scientific and conservation expertise—as well as partnering with international organizations, growers and communities—to scale up sustainable agicultural practices.

As part of this collaboration, Syngenta and TNC are exploring and testing innovations through regional projects in these key agricultural regions:

• Argentina: In the Chaco region, work will focus on maintaining biodiversity and resilient ecosystems. The project is designed to restore and maintain forest habitat, which aids in regulating nutrient cycling and pests, creates windbreaks against soil erosion, captures carbon, and improves freshwater quality. Through the collaboration, Syngenta and TNC will develop guidelines for suggested best practices and a toolkit for producers.
• Brazil: The collaboration will generate new research on the agronomic and conservation benefits of protected and reforested habitat to research and disseminate the economic benefits of best agricultural practices with a focus on improving land productivity on degraded pastures.
• China: In cooperation with Chinese enterprises and academia, the focus will be on the health and productivity of soil in arid potato-growing regions. The organizations are assessing and testing the environmental and industrial consequences of continuous cropping of potatoes and working to explore a science-based, sustainable crop rotation model for the region.
• Kenya: In Murang’a county, a densely populated region outside Nairobi, the team is working with farmers to implement practices to capture and store rainwater for off-season irrigation, which provides opportunities to increase farm income. It also helps reduce soil erosion, which benefits soil fertility, yields, and water quality. The project also includes soil testing and agronomic training on Integrated Pest Management practices to help farmers maximize benefits from off-season irrigation.
• United States: Working across Syngenta’s network of agricultural product retailers, the collaboration aims to encourage and incentivize the adoption of conservation practices, such as nutrient management, edge-of-field practices and habitat preservation, with an initial focus on agriculture in the Saginaw Bay and Western Lake Erie watersheds.

The new collaboration builds on the positive impacts we have made on farming practices in Brazil, China, and the United States. Examples of this work include:

• In 2018, we launched sustainable agriculture demonstration projects in arid and semi-arid regions of China to promote soil health and productivity for potatoes.
• In 2015, we developed a new system of training, implementation, and measurement of best management practices in the Saginaw Bay Watershed in the U.S. state of Michigan to improve water quality and preserve natural habitat. In 2017, Syngenta, TNC, and the Kellogg Company received the Field to Market Collaboration of the Year award for outstanding partnership in advancing the sustainability of U.S. agriculture for work in the Saginaw Bay Watershed.
• In 2013, we introduced sustainable productive landscapes practices in Brazil to benefit integrated cattle grazing and crop production.
• In 2009, we launched the Greener Soybean (Soja+Verde) initiative to promote sustainable soybean production in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state. Working with other companies and local government, we mapped 6 million hectares to encourage conservation and registration in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). Today, more than 90 percent of the region’s registerable area is in the CAR.
• In 2007, we began mapping rural producers in Mato Grosso, Brazil to prevent deforestation and conversion of natural habitat for soy production.