Community
Syngenta products help farmers improve productivity. This stimulates rural economies and brings new opportunities to communities.
We aim to optimize our positive impacts by focusing our corporate donations – both financial and in-kind – on projects that support the health, wellbeing and prosperity of local communities. Our employees often instigate these projects and volunteer their time.
Much of our direct support for communities is provided through the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. Our other sustainable agriculture initiatives also benefit rural communities.
We reviewed the way we measure our community investment using the London Benchmarking Group model, to better understand the overall contribution we make. We estimate our contribution to rural communities amounted to a total of $9.0 million in 2007.
Here we highlight some examples of our community projects around the world.
- Golden Rice
- Philippines: Clearing weeds to promote public heath
- Chile: Creating a better future for children in rural communities
- Thailand: Rebuilding after floods
- Colombia: Promoting health checks for children
- Egypt: Improving the livelihoods of farmers
- Tanzania: Improve yields, improve livelihoods
- Brazil: Steering young people away from drugs
- Kenya: Boosting a local economy
- Australia: Helping farmers affected by bushfires
- France: Teaching students about safe manufacturing
- India: helping the neglected to farm
- Africa: Supporting scientific innovation
Golden Rice
Vitamin A deficiency blinds between quarter and half a million children every year as well as contributing to other diseases. Golden Rice – fortified with pro-vitamin A through biotechnology – was developed to provide a cheap source of vitamin A in a staple crop for those who cannot afford a varied diet of fruit, vegetables and animal products.
Since its initial development in collaboration with Professor Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Professor Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in the late 1990s, research continues to generate new varieties with increased vitamin content. In 2006, vitamin-enriched varieties of rice developed by Syngenta were transferred to public sector researchers in India and the Philippines.
For more information, see www.goldenrice.org.
Philippines: Clearing weeds to promote public heath
The Syngenta Foundation supported clean-up drives in the southern Philippines as part of the 2007 Earth Day run by a local USAID-funded NGO.
The clean-ups at a wetland site and three schools on the island of Mindanao used the Syngenta herbicide GRAMOXONE® to clear vegetation where mosquitoes breed. This helps to reduce the risk of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever.
More than 650 volunteers took part in 33 clean-up drives supported by the Syngenta Foundation in villages around the city of Vigan in the Philippines in 2006. All those taking part received training on how to use GRAMOXONE® safely and effectively.
An outbreak of dengue fever in some provinces of the Philippines and parts of Manila in 2006 highlighted the need for these clean-ups to clear vegetation where mosquitoes that carry the disease breed.
Chile: Creating a better future for children in rural communities
Syngenta sponsors the Quino’s Rural School in Chile’s IX Region – donating computers, improving facilities and developing a plan to boost academic, artistic and sporting performance.
We provided computers and other equipment, as well as rewards for effort and achievement. Attendance has doubled and students’ test results have significantly improved since the introduction of this programme in 2003.
Thailand: Rebuilding after floods
Volunteers from local Syngenta operations helped restore a school library after devastating floods in the Supanburi province of central Thailand in late 2006.
They spent two days on site helping to clear debris, install furniture and restock bookshelves. Syngenta contributed around $10,000 towards the project, along with employee donations of money, clothes and books.
In 2006, employees at our Bangpoo site in Thailand planted and raised over 150 trees as part of a project to “Save trees for a sustainable environment”. The personal association with the trees aims to encourage our employees – and through them, the local communities – to take pride in their surroundings and instill a culture of care for the future of the environment.
Colombia: Promoting health checks for children
Our Health Brigade in Colombia has provided health checks and medicines for children living in the poor Policarpa neighbourhood near our plant in Cartagena for over 10 years.
The Health Brigade has helped more than 1,100 children in the last four years alone. The program has also helped many children return to school or improve their academic results by improving their health. From 2004, the program has also included hair-trimming, eye tests and dental check-ups.
Egypt: Improving the livelihoods of farmers
Syngenta has been helping poor farmers in Egypt improve their livelihoods since 2004. Farmers in the desert region in the south struggle to produce successful crops using traditional methods.
In partnership with the Near East Foundation, a development NGO, we trained farmers to use sustainable agricultural techniques. This helps improve crop quality and increase yields. Harvests across a range of crops have improved markedly, and tomato yields have doubled.
We encouraged farmers to widen their range of crops by growing more fruit and vegetables. A greater variety of produce helps improve community nutrition and gives farmers greater access to more lucrative markets. Better productivity and higher-value crops have boosted incomes.
Tanzania: Improve yields, improve livelihoods
Syngenta is helping to improve cashew yields in southern Tanzania, where around 280,000 families rely on cashew nuts for their livelihoods. Our fungicide Thiovit Jet effectively tackles powdery mildew disease, replacing rock sulphur which makes the soil acidic.
Water is needed to use Thiovit Jet. In 2006, we built three wells to combat severe water shortages in the area. More than 30,000 seedlings and 500 kg of seed were distributed to replace old, low-yielding trees.
We also ran a series of training sessions for growers to improve their production skills so that they could add value to their crop by processing the nuts rather than exporting them raw.
Brazil: Steering young people away from drugs
Syngenta employees in Brazil are involved in a number of initiatives help prevent drug addiction among young people in the city of Paulinia. The Apostando no Futuro project, established in 1991, has evolved into a broad educational and sports program.
To date, the project has reached some 29,000 students aged seven to 18 well as 750 teachers. Syngenta won a citizenship award from the local Rotary Club in recognition of its contribution to the project.
Kenya: Boosting a local economy
Syngenta is helping to improve the quality of life in the impoverished central Kenyan village of Gitothua, in partnership with fair trade NGO, the Max Havelaar Foundation, and another local business. Improvements include establishing a new day care and community center, and digging a well to provide clean drinking water.
The center, opened in 2006, offers subsidized childcare, as well as HIV/AIDS counseling and family planning services. By helping with childcare, the center enables women to take on jobs and contribute to their family income.
This prosperity is benefiting the local economy and several new businesses have opened as a result, including grocers, hairdressers and a bicycle repair shop.
Australia: Helping farmers affected by bushfires
Bushfires in January 2006 wreaked havoc for farmers in New South Wales, Australia. Around 30,000 hectares of land were damaged and 23,000 farm animals died.
Syngenta joined forces with JJS Glass & Co, a local agricultural product supplier in the town of Junee, to provide financial support to the farmers. A five percent donation was offered on every Syngenta product sold by the supplier in 2006, to help local farmers rebuild after the bushfire.
Fourteen affected farmers each received a total of AU$5,000. This initiative not only benefited the farmers, but also helped to increase sales of Syngenta products in the area.
We are also donating AUS$2 per pack of Syngenta products sold by the local store to help prevent the closure of a pre-school in Ardlethan, a small village in New South Wales, 500 kilometres from Sydney and 100 kilometres from the nearest town. We have collected more than AUS$17,000 to date.
France: Teaching students about safe manufacturing
Syngenta is running a program in northern France that teaches schoolchildren about safe practice in chemical manufacturing and encourages them to consider careers in the industry.
Students visit the Syngenta site at St. Pierre-la-Garenne six times during a two-year program, run in partnership with regional educational authorities and the Chemical Industry Association. They learn about health, safety and environment practices first-hand from Syngenta staff and carry out mock workplace risk assessments.
India: helping the neglected to farm
Syngenta is working with the Syngenta Foundation to help leprosy patients and their families. We have teamed up with Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), a charitable organization that rehabilitates leprosy sufferers and helps them overcome the stigma associated with the disease to live with dignity. Farming is one of the key vocational activities supported by MSS. Many patients come to MSS with only basic agricultural skills and limited dexterity. Syngenta employees worked with patients in the fields to teach them more advanced techniques.
A pilot project with hybrid vegetables improved quality and quantity so much that the community doubled its income. MSS reinvested these extra earnings back into welfare programs and expanded the project for future years. The charity and patients now want to work with Syngenta to improve all aspects of their agriculture and make it sustainable. They have also encouraged other local farmers to grow vegetables and other crops more scientifically.
Africa: Supporting scientific innovation
Syngenta is collaborating with the Royal Society of Chemistry to establish the Pan African Chemistry Network to support scientific and economic development in Africa. The network will connect chemists across the continent through seminars, conferences and workshops, enabling them to share ideas.
We have donated £1 million to fund sustainable agriculture initiatives in Kenya, where the first network is being launched. A prime focus of the network is agricultural development, including food security and sustainability, clean water and disease prevention.
The network will also run a science competition in schools to get children and their teachers interested in chemistry and show how it can be applied in work and everyday life.
