Syngenta launches project to preserve pollinators in Argentina

Syngenta launched this month the global project “Multifunctional Landscapes”, which has the goal of preserving the native biodiversity and increasing the number of pollinating insects (like bees or other species) in agricultural areas. Refuges compounds of weeds were installed at the Experimental Station in the town of Santa Isabel, province of Santa Fe, Argentina.

These refuges are planted within a distance between six and ten meters from the crop boundaries, combining invasive plants such as Johnson Grass, horseweed and many other species. The pollinators keep them active and alive with the flowers of the weeds, even during the fallow time.

"We have to leave behind what we have been doing. The productivity gain offered by this refuge of weeds is greater than harvest until the last meter or dropping the native flora and, as a result, the food of pollinators,” affirms Dr. Santiago Poggio, researcher and coordinator of the Multifunctional Landscapes initiative in Santa Isabel.

The expert tells that in the Syngenta station, which works with improvement of corn and soybeans, in just one year it was possible to increase the flora and the diversity of pollinators. “This strategy can be managed by a producer maintaining a calendar of activities, date of seedling, fallow, etc. We are not seeking to introduce an external variable, but to set these refuges that naturally follow the production,” sustains Poggio.

According to Dr. Marcelo Aizen, a researcher of the National Council of Scientific Research of Argentina (Conicet), over 90% of the plants depend somewhat on pollinators, including the major world crops. “Indirectly, pollinators are responsible for seeds, vitamins and nutrients. Even though there are diverse roles, it just talked about one species [bees], but the truth is that there is a wide diversity. Even among bees there are over 20 thousand species,” he points out.

According to some studies, increases of over 20% were observed on the yields of crops such as sunflowers, alfafa and canola, and a little bit less on other crops. The program of Multifunctional Landscapes is part of the sustainability strategy of Syngenta named “The Good Growth Plan”, in which one of the main commitments until 2020 is to promote biodiversity.