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Meeting the challenge of growing more from less helps focus Syngenta

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It’s rare to hear a representative from a multinational company talk about an important corporate initiative that isn’t about making money. But, Rick DeRose, the Lead of Technology Strategy and Integration at Syngenta, says his company sees such a huge challenge in feeding the world that industry, academia and governments must work together to achieve this goal.

“It’s an important strategic shift for Syngenta,” DeRose says. “Despite a solid foundation of nearly 5,000 R&D scientists worldwide, we know the future relies on technologies developed through mutually beneficial partnerships. We see valuable opportunity in seeking innovative ideas outside our organization and from all corners of the world. Together, partnerships will help us meet our objective to feed 9 billion people by the year 2050.”

Syngenta is the Swiss-based marketer of seeds and crop protection products around the world. It reported 2011 revenue of $13.3 billion.

The answer to increasing worldwide demand for food, DeRose says, is not in creating and selling more sophisticated seeds and farm equipment, it’s an integrated crop management strategy that employs processes, equipment, biology and chemistry to increase yield and productivity.

“We’re going to have to significantly increase productivity in the developing world — and there are limits to how much we can achieve,” he said. “In parts of the U.S., under peak conditions, we can produce as much as 400 bushels an acre, but in the developing world that may be less than 100 bushels on what may be marginal land where the only moisture is falling from the sky.”

DeRose offered China as an example of how important this issue is.

“China is spending a lot on research into genetic modification and trait discovery and acquiring land, or the outright rights to the land, to feed their own population,” DeRose said. “For them, this is the number one national security issue.”

DeRose sees progress being made. “We’re seeing things that are state of the art now that we couldn’t conceive of five years ago.”

But he worries that we are not far from the year 2050 when the world population is estimated to reach nine billion, three billion in Asia alone.

The biggest impediment, DeRose says, is “lack of government support.”

“Most governments in the developing world are not yet taking action because of current overproduction,” he said. “They have seemingly forgotten about two years ago when the price of corn, rice and wheat went through the roof.”

“It appears governments won’t take action until the wheels start to squeak.”


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