Syngenta Crop Protection: Dedicated to deliver sustainable and innovative solution to growers

Editor's Note: “Sustainability is a core part of our disease control strategy, and we are collaborating across regions to ensure we reach our Good Growth Plan commitments," said Cathy Wei, Global Head of Disease Control at Syngenta in a recent interview with AgroPages. Besides, she also shared her views on key market trends and challenges of fungicides, Syngenta’s determination to enforce Intellectual property (IP) protection for azoxystrobin, and R&D capabilities and innovation fungicides of Syngenta.

Cathy Wei

Global Head of Disease Control at Syngenta

Disease control segment overview: key market trends and challenges

Syngenta Crop Protection (CP) is a global leader in disease control, a market that is worth close to $17bn and expected to grow by a CAGR of 2.7% until 2027, according to market intelligence specialists. 

Besides weather and disease pressure, which can vary and occur throughout the season, there are a number of drivers that are key to understanding the global disease control market, including the need for technological innovation and the increasing demand for quality food, among others. Technological innovation needs are mainly driven by regulatory challenges, resistance management, digital and alternative technologies. The current biggest classes within the fungicides market are the triazoles, strobilurins and the SDHIs, and it is expected that these will continue to be the leading chemical classes in the coming years. However, each of them is facing some challenges, which is why companies like Syngenta need to keep innovating and developing sustainable solutions for growers. 

Europe remains one of the most challenging geographies in the market. In Europe, a number of active ingredients (AIs) have been de-registered (e.g., mancozeb, chlorothalonil), and other existing products like copper or certain triazoles have been added to the list of candidates for substitutions. 

Another challenge can be associated with the concern of resistance appearance, like SDHIs in South America. The continuous development of resistance issues, combined with the removal of older products, force companies such as Syngenta to keep their innovation rate at a high pace. To meet this innovation need, Syngenta invests in the research and development of new synthetic fungicides as well as explores biological solutions. Biologicals are an important element in the future of agriculture, giving growers greater options in disease and resistance management, while helping to address the regulatory concerns. In parallel, volume reductions from alternative technologies, such as precision farming, also impacts Syngenta’s business. Bringing greater value to farmers with less applications, is an important goal at Syngenta, and the company’s technologies can efficiently and effectively support this transition. Finally, the sales of fungicide products are also strongly driven by one geography: Central and Latin America, where two factors: 1) the shift to higher value fruits and vegetables crops and 2) the additional disease pressure coming from Asian Soy Rust, are major elements for future market growth. 

Climate change will continue to impact crop shifts as well as pest and disease pressure shifts. In recent years Syngenta has seen the spread of certain diseases like Asian Soybean Rust in Brazil, Wheat Blast in Asia, and the citrus greening disease in Florida. This spread will continuously need to be addressed, to secure growers’ harvests. With a series of products running off-patent, it’s always critical to continue investment in portfolio rejuvenation and bring innovation to customers. The post-patent strategies will be central to keep market footprint in the longer-term and ensure growers access quality and efficient products also in the future. A good example of this is azoxystrobin. 

Syngenta’s determination to enforce Intellectual property (IP) protection for azoxystrobin

Azoxystrobin has been a cornerstone of the Syngenta business since it entered the market over 25 years ago, and quickly became the world’s top selling fungicide. Syngenta’s branded azoxystrobin product, AMISTAR^® Technology, is still very strong and continues to be the global leader in innovation and formulation technology, recently launching several new brands including AMISTAR^® Top and QUILT^® into strategic markets such as cereals in Europe, rice in Asia and field crops across China.

The patent that protected the AI as a compound expired a number of years ago. However, Syngenta underwent significant development work to optimize the manufacturing process for azoxystrobin, leading to the identification of several strategic patented processes. As a result, Syngenta holds three azoxystrobin process patents across the globe and works rigorously to defend this intellectual property (IP), with the goal to maximize the value of azoxystrobin and continue to bring growers a high performing and top-quality broad-spectrum fungicide they can count on. 

Syngenta heavily invests in the infrastructure required to defend and enforce the IP for azoxystrobin including proactively identifying and sampling up to hundreds of generic products annually from across the globe. An extensive network of analytical laboratories and scientists can identify any IP infringement and benchmark quality vs other manufacturers and generic suppliers. 

With full time legal and IP attorneys on staff, in addition to deploying outside council, Syngenta puts an emphasis on defending and litigating any IP infringements in the court system. Over the last several years, Syngenta has won, or come to, settlements in numerous cases relating to azoxystrobin IP infringements in multiple regions around the world including Latin America, North America, and Europe.

Another growing problem in the crop protection sector is counterfeit goods. Imposter brands and low-quality products being sold in the market is highly damaging to growers and companies like Syngenta CP, whose reputation is on the line. In 2021 alone, as result of Syngenta’s investigations, testing and intelligence gathering efforts, 849 metric tons of illicit azoxystrobin were seized by authorities from the marketplace.

Syngenta is dedicated to innovation and quality without cutting any corners when it comes to formulated products. Over a three-year sampling period with over 200 samples tested, Syngenta found that 75% of generic azoxystrobin did not include a built-in adjuvant, 69% did not meet Syngenta quality standards for purity, 53% had no anti-freeze agent and 47% of the samples had a large particle size. Overall, 80% of samples were deemed to be inferior quality to Syngenta formulations or illegal. 

Syngenta is committed to continue to defend the IP of azoxystrobin and lead the marketplace in bringing high performing products. There are many options for growers in the marketplace and it is of the utmost importance that when they choose Syngenta’s azoxystrobin they know they are getting the highest quality formulation possible supported by a global team of scientific and sales professionals dedicated to their success.

Syngenta’s R&D capabilities can address the market challenges and contribute to the farmer’s toolkit in protecting their crops sustainably

ADEPIDYN™ technology is Syngenta’s new blockbuster fungicide that is sold under the MIRAVIS™ brand portfolio. It was first launched in late 2016 in Argentina and is now sold in over 30 countries with the key markets being the US, Canada, China, and Argentina. In 2022 first launches are planned for Brazil, Ukraine and Russia and registration and launches in Europe are expected in 2023 and 2024. 

ADEPIDYN™ technology was designed to combine the individual strengths of previous carboxamides (SDHI-fungicides) with an even more favorable human and environmental safety profile to deliver unprecedented power, spectrum, and stamina. It is consistently more potent than other SDHI-fungicides against several key pathogens both in lab testing and in field applications and delivers a new standard of protection against a range of key diseases like Septoria, Cercospora, Corynespora and other leaf diseases across soybeans, cereals, corn, cotton and peanuts and scab (Venturia) and Alternaria in fruit and vegetable crops. 

ADEPIDYN™ technology is the only SDHI-fungicides with excellent efficacy against Fusarium Head Blight in cereals, providing a crucial new mode of action against this disease. Beyond its high and long-lasting efficacy in the field, it offers several additional benefits that are important for farmers, the food chain and other agricultural stakeholders. For example, through its high efficacy, ADEPIDYN™ technology brings a new resistance management tool to farmers and allows for less use of chemicals due to its unprecedent rain fastness and long-lasting control. It also allows for low to no residue programs in various crops and brings important new technology to many minor crops.

As shown from the ADEPIDYN™ technology example, Syngenta focuses on building residue management capabilities and solutions to enable customers to maximize their return on investments. Syngenta also seeks to enhance market access through minimum residue level and secondary standards compliance, while striving for lowest residues in crops and the environment, as stated in Syngenta’s Good Growth Plan.

Sustainability is a core part of Syngenta’s disease control strategy, and Syngenta is collaborating across regions to ensure the company reaches Good Growth Plan commitments. For example, in Brazil the program “Manejo Consciente” aims to optimize resistance management for Asian Soybean Rust disease. In Europe, and more specifically, in Italy, Syngenta local teams are providing residue management guidance for grapes growers, with the support of a digital tool, eMAT (electronic market access tool) that can predict residues at harvest. This enables customers to maximize their return on investment and enhances market access through minimum residue level and secondary standards compliance, while striving for lowest residues in crops and the environment. Safe usage of Syngenta’s products is also primordial and stewardship guidance for safe use is part of Syngenta product launches, such as PERGADO^® a fungicide that was launched for cocoa in Africa.

With Syngenta's support and conscious management, excellent results are possible

eMAT (electronic market access tool) in Italy.

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This article was initially published in AgroPages' 'Annual Review 2021' magazine.