Syngenta & Benchling: Driving faster seed and agricultural development at a global scale

Syngenta, a global leader in agricultural science and technology, faced several challenges. One of the main challenges was balancing customization and standardization. Syngenta wanted standardized data for cross-company analysis, but each department had its own preferences and needs for recording and recalling data. Another challenge was collaboration across the globe. Handoffs between different geographies, languages, time zones, and areas of expertise while using paper records led to bottlenecks. Lastly, managing many regulatory requirements was a challenge. Different countries maintain complex, shifting regulatory requirements around product safety that all need to be met.

Syngenta is an innovation powerhouse in seeds and agricultural products, with teams in over 90 countries. Their R&D focuses on designing seeds with desirable genetics that require fewer inputs—land, water, pesticides, nutrients— while producing great outputs. Growers depend on Syngenta for hardier, higher quality crops as geographies of fungal and bacterial diseases shift, climates fluctuate to more extremes, and the demand to feed the global population grows. Syngenta has maintained its position as a global leader in agricultural science and technology, particularly in seeds and crop protection products, by cultivating innovation. One of the strengths that drives this culture of innovation is diversity throughout the company. Syngenta benefits from a diversity of roles, from regulators to molecular scientists, as well as a diversity of geographies, leading to differing climates, conditions, tool availability, and cultural norms. Another key aspect to Syngenta’s success is scale. Researchers are able to test hundreds of thousands of products at a time, share with labs, greenhouses, and regulatory agencies in many countries, and create a stock that can be distributed globally.