Syngenta: better value-chain partnerships will benefit smallholder farmers

Roberto Vega, Syngenta’s head smallholder policy and food chain relations, talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about the company’s work in the sugarcane sector and more broadly with smallholder famers. They debate the environmental and social pressures, including fluctuating prices that impact on smallholder farmers, and how best to ensure inputs are cost-effective, while keeping their impacts low. Vega argues that the real opportunities going forward, for farmers and their customers, are through developing partnerships, combining the expertise of all to enable the entire value chain to work together for everyone’s benefit.