Syngenta AgriEdge Celebrates 20 Years Of Whole-Farm, Data-Enabled Program
Two decades ago Syngenta launched AgriEdge with 12 farmers and a combined 6,000 acres of cotton.
“The program started as Cotton Advantage, and then Project Yield, to now become AgriEdge,” says Jacky Davis marketing lead for AgriEdge. “It started with cotton because those growers definitely had a lot of demand from the stewardship perspective with record keeping, and Syngenta had the right pieces in place in the south with the right personnel to launch the program.”
Today, the program marks its 20th year and has a network of more than 8,000 farmers and 25 million acres across all crops, including potatoes, corn, soy, wheat, cotton, sugar beets and specialty crops---citrus, watermelon, almond, and vegetables.
Davis explains the program is beyond a whole farm management program and is really a tool to enable more data-driven decisions.
She says the company has dedicated the boots on the ground to help growers with chemical and seed decisions as well as digitize their efforts and transition their businesses from paper to a single data entry point.
Today, AgriEdge has five key areas:
- Agronomics
- Service
- Stewardship
- Economics
- Technology
“We’ve continued to evolve this program as Syngenta has evolved. AgriEdge is a building block to a more data-driven grower, and we have new integrations, new tools and new products being added for record keeping, agronomic offers, cost share and more. We have a new platform coming in 2022 as well,” Davis says.
Davis says the program has about a 90% retention rate. An example of growth for the program has been the citrus market where the record keeping and scouting aspects of AgriEdge have been particularly beneficial for those growers.
“Our record keeping has enabled a trip from an auditor to no longer take the whole day. Our growers can get them what they need, have the conversations they need and be done in an hour or less. Everything they need to share can be handed over in a single notebook,” Davis says.
The program can be seen as a way for the company to go direct to farmers, but Davis refutes that misconception saying that AgriEdge works with the retail channel.
“We’re collaborators, and we had a unique opportunity to go alongside the retailers and we’ve also included retailers in the program,” Davis says. “We have retailers who have a group of growers who fit the AgriEdge model, and they are using our program with those growers.”
