Syngenta makes Good Growth Plan Progress Data openly accessible

For the first time crop-level information has been openly shared by a commercial organization: The Syngenta AG collaborates with the Open Data Institute (ODI) to publish progress data of their Good Growth Plan.

The Good Growth Plan was launched in 2013 by Syngenta to support the future sustainability in the agricultural sector. It includes six commitments that aim at optimizing crops, rescue farmland and biodiversity as well as at the empowerment of smallholders and the strengthening of safety and working rights.

The progress of these goals is reported every year. The corresponding data is openly published on the web page and can be downloaded. Syngenta is collaborating with ODI in order to apply best practices for opening their data. These practices include the usage of different Creative Common Licenses, the provision of data in a harmonized and structured format, the usage of metadata and controlled vocabularies as well as the provision of documentation and support channels for communication. Applying these practices, the data is searchable, useable and shareable via the internet. With the open provision of data, Syngenta wants to allow third parties to make their own evaluations of the Good Growth Plan project and take a step towards more sustainability.

The shared data includes information for agricultural efficient indicators collected on 3600 farms in 41 countries from all over the world. The data reflects about 200 crop-climate combinations and includes resource efficiency.