Swiss agriculture technology giant Syngenta Group and US-based environmental organisation The Nature Conservancy (TNC) aim to restore millions of hectares of degraded land in China, Brazil and the United States in the next three years in an effort to transform the agriculture sector in the fight against climate change.
The two entities, which have been collaborating since 2009 and entered into a global partnership in 2018, announced a three-year renewal of their collaboration on Thursday.
They will focus on advancing business practices with the goals of scaling up regenerative agriculture, improving resource efficiency to minimise the impact of agriculture on climate, improving soil health and promoting habitat protection in major agricultural regions worldwide.
“We want to further leverage our efforts towards a climate solution-oriented agriculture fuelled by innovation and partnerships that regenerate soil and protect nature,” Petra Laux, chief sustainability officer of Syngenta Group, said in a statement on Thursday. “Agriculture must not only feed a growing global population over the coming decades, but it also needs to fight climate change and safeguard natural resources.”
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Regenerative agriculture refers to farming and grazing practices that seek to reverse climate change by nurturing and restoring soil health, protecting water resources and safeguarding biodiversity – while also enhancing farms’ productivity and profitability.
Globally, agriculture and forestry together contribute around 17 per cent of humanity’s greenhouse-gas emissions – the largest source of emissions after electricity and heat, according to the World Resources Institute.
According to Syngenta, regenerative agriculture practices, such as turning farms into carbon sinks, reversing desertification and preventing land conversion, could draw more than 10 per cent of all human-driven carbon emissions into the soil over the next 25 years if applied at scale. Changes in farm practices could sequester nearly 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide globally a year, it said.
In China, Syngenta and TNC will promote sustainable farming practices through their Run Tian project, which launched in 2020. This aims to help farmers modernise in a sustainable way by improving soil health while also boosting crop quality, yield and farm profitability through farmer service centres across the country.
The Run Tian project has already regenerated 2,400 hectares of agricultural soils in the North China Plain, the largest wheat-producing area in China. It has also trained more than 17,000 farmers on regenerative agricultural practices, leading to a 4 per cent increase in yield, according to Syngenta.
In Brazil, Syngenta is aiming to recover 1 million hectares of degraded land and make restoration a profitable option for farmers rather than clearing native vegetation.
In the US, Syngenta and TNC will launch two new projects. The first will enhance cropland’s climate resilience and reduce farming pressure on water resources through diverse crop rotations with regenerative sorghum production. The second will scale regenerative agriculture practices with US seed producers, according to Syngenta.