Farm Progress

Farmers can use the technology to better understand which practices on their operations have the most impact.

Willie Vogt

March 28, 2022

3 Min Read
View between corn rows
TARGETING SUSTAINABILITY: Raising a great crop is a solid start for any operation, but doing it sustainably is increasingly important. A new app from Syngenta helps farmers better understand how their practices impact farm sustainability measures and offers options for improvement. Willie Vogt

The term “sustainability” gets tossed around quite a bit in agriculture as the industry looks at everything from soil health to the farm’s carbon footprint. But measuring how your practices relate to sustainability, as well as targeting areas of improvement, isn’t easy. But a new app from Syngenta could help.

“I think of sustainability reporting as kind of a big swimming pool,” says Liz Hunt, head of sustainable and responsible business for North America at Syngenta. “You can walk in from the shallow end of the pool or you can jump into the deep end. And not everybody’s ready to jump into the deep end of the pool.”

For those farmers who want to go all in on sustainability, Syngenta has tools for them, Hunt says, but more than likely, most will want to walk into the shallow end first.

To help that group, Syngenta has launched the Cropwise Sustainability app that can put farm sustainability insights into the hands of growers.

A member of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative, Syngenta developed the app to work with the Sustainable Outcomes in Agriculture standard. The app empowers farmers to demonstrate sustainability and identify opportunities for continuous improvement, ensuring alignment with the objects of the Farm Sustainability Assessment, developed by SAI.

“We took all our learnings of working with deeper metrics and farmers for 10-plus years, and we applied those learnings to our [Sustainable Outcomes in Agriculture] standard,” Hunt says.

She says the new app — available on the Apple app story and through Google Play for Android — lets farmers look at their current level of sustainable actions for optimal crop production or soil health, and benchmark the farm against others in the community or of the same size.

Getting better all the time

The app can also help farmers improve. “One question we always get is, ‘What can I do to get better?’ which is a great question for folks to be asking,” Hunt says. “We can identify some opportunities in their operation based on how they answered the assessment in the app to provide a starting point.”

The aim is to simplify the process of identifying continuous improvement points around the farm — from how fertilizer is applied to what tillage practices are used. Helping farmers assess their operations, the app prompts them to answer questions about their farm production practices and decisions, and receive a leadership score and performance report based on sustainable outcomes.

In announcing the program, Syngenta reiterated its privacy pledge that growers maintain ownership of their data and can choose to share their assessment results with value chain partners.

Hunt says the results are compiled in an intuitive, digital dashboard that tracks progress in areas such as crop production, water impact, soil health, biodiversity and habitat, human and animal well-being, and community leadership.

“You can finish your farm assessment in about 30 minutes and start to get a feel to start that walk into the sustainability swimming pool,” Hunt says.

To check out the app, search “Cropwise Sustainability” on your favorite app platform.

About the Author(s)

Willie Vogt

Willie Vogt has been covering agricultural technology for more than 40 years, with most of that time as editorial director for Farm Progress. He is passionate about helping farmers better understand how technology can help them succeed, when appropriately applied.

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