Syngenta launches food security index

Syngenta has launched an index to measure different countries' capacity to address food security issues. It is planning to use the index to open up dialogue with governments and other people involved in food industries.

"The index is a simple presentation of the complex issue of food security", and intends to show the major drivers for food security tensions, Andrew McConville, Syngenta's head of Corporate Affairs in the Asia-Pacific region said on June 6.

He added that the company was considering approaching the Chinese government with the information uncovered by the index.

The index, named the Rice Bowl index, assesses how resilient a country is in maintaining food security, rather than measuring the actual level of food security in different countries.

The index has four items, each addressing an aspect of food security, namely the country's policies and trade, environmental factors, farm-level factors, and demand and price.

The index - entirely based on public data - was put together by the Frontier Strategy Group, an information services and corporate advisory firm that focuses on emerging markets, with an independent analysis conducted by Paul Teng, a professor at the Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University.