Successful first year of The Good Growth Plan

The Good Growth Plan is off to a good start.
The Good Growth Plan is off to a good start. | Courtesy of britannica.com

Syngenta recently published an update about the first year of The Good Growth Plan, which promotes the sustainability of the agricultural industry and rural communities.

Based in Switzerland, Syngenta’s global network contained more than 3,500 benchmark and reference farms in 2014. Approximately 860 of the reference farms have implemented specialized protocols to improve their productivity; 2,700 benchmark farms will symbolize a baseline that growers typically achieve without the specialized protocols.

Syngenta’s program influenced more than 700,000 hectares of farmland as well as 800,000 hectares of soil in general. The company now has 15.3 million smallholders; most of these smallholders are in Asia.

The company successfully involved 4.7 million people in training programs that will improve the safety of the agricultural industry.

Syngenta continues to make adjustments to the seeds supplier program to include more than half of its 50,000 supply farms around the world.

"Today's update verifies the progress made in the first year of The Good Growth Plan,” Mike Mack, CEO of Syngenta, said. “It also shows there is much to do if we are to meet the challenging goals we set ourselves by 2020. But we should be encouraged by the fact we now have the capacity to measure, monitor and manage improvements in land productivity and input efficiency. This greatly improves our ability to have a deep and positive impact on farmers and rural communities."