Name: Fortune Global 500 Summit: A conversation with Syngenta CEO Erik Fyrwald
Uploaded: 2021-10-20
Duration: 12 min 25 s
Description: Erik Fyrwald sits down with Fortune's Clay Chandler at the Fortune Global 500 Summit.

Erik Fyrwald sits down with Fortune's Clay Chandler at the Fortune Global 500 Summit.

Fortune Global 500 Summit: A conversation with Syngenta CEO Erik Fyrwald

International

A conversation with Syngenta CEO Erik Fyrwald

eric firewalled is the ceo of Syngenta. Eric thanks for joining us today. Great to be here. Clay Syngenta is a $23 billion 28,000 employees in 90 countries. And you're in the business of helping farmers to produce food and to feed the world. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about how syngenta does that. So we are a leading seeds, crop protection And crop nutrition company where we serve farmers as you said around the world in 90 countries but our biggest market now is china. 4.5 years ago we were purchased by kim china for $43 billion, the largest acquisition that china's ever made outside of china. And since then we've been growing tremendously all around the world and especially in china a little bit about that growth in china because I know that that's a big opportunity for you. Yeah, so before we were acquired 4.5 years ago Our sales were 300 million in China Last year. They were six billion. And in the first half of this year we grew 47%. So what we're seeing in china is a transformation of agriculture and we're bringing the world's leading seeds crop protection crop nutrition capabilities to farmers. But we've also created a farmer solution center business called maps for modern agriculture platform where we're building centers all across china to bring farmers everything that they need. We test their soil and then we advise them what seeds to plant, what crop protection products, what crop nutrition products and then when to harvest and how to deal with weather extremes, these weather extremes that people are seeing around the world due to climate change are really challenging for farmers and we helped them through that with digital tools and so they get higher yields, better quality and more food security for china with better nutrition. We we've talked a lot at this event about trade wards, about climate change, about disruptions to both uh you know, the supply side of the global economy and and uh and supply chains and all those things seem to be really playing out in the in the food sector. Uh and china has a kind of a particular challenge in getting that supply and demand equation right uh in uh in the food sector, I wonder if you could, they sort of specifically a little bit about food security challenges and what what china is up against for particular types of crops. Well, the challenge for China is they have 20% Of the world's population and 7% of Arable Land. So that's quite a challenge. And historically chinese farmers have had less yields because the agriculture industry has been very fragmented. There hasn't been any leadership bringing the best technology from around the world. And there hasn't been a intellectual property protection. Well, that's changed in the recent few years and we've been a driver of that change, bringing the best technology from around the world, developing it further for the chinese market with research done in china and then intellectual property? We've used the courts, we've used the Ministry of Agriculture, we've used the police to defend our intellectual property, which has allowed us to grow very rapidly. And then we put together these farmer solution centers which helped farmers leapfrogs from old practices to modern products and practices, including digital tools that are even going beyond what any farmers are using in other parts of the world. And what's amazing also is these map modern agriculture platform centers where we're working with farmers, we're connecting those farms all the way to consumers with Blockchain technology and then and then a map certification on and use food products and then the consumer can scan the QR code and see a picture of the farmer and see sustainability and safety data that's not happening anywhere else in the world, but it's happening in china today, which is bringing both quality, higher yields, so food security, but also better nutrition and because of these modern practices, there's soil health and better environmental protection, better, better able, better enabling farmers to address weather extremes from climate change and be part of the solution to climate change. That's fascinating. So what I hear you say there, that is that you're you're working both with digital technologies as well as uh, you know, biotech solutions which have been kind of your traditional forte at uh Syngenta, is that, is that, is that a new type of technology for you to be dealing with and and how have you moved into that space? It's not a new technology for us. We've been on the leading edge of seat technology historically, but since our acquisition by kim China, we formed partnerships with chinese institutes like the the CIA S the chinese Agriculture Academy of Sciences and the chinese Agriculture University, where they're doing a lot of leading edge research in areas like gene editing um which is leading the world frankly and gene editing technology and we're connecting with them so that we can bring the understanding of the market needs help them address what the target should be and then taking the products through the development stage and commercializing them. So that combination of global see genetics seed products, both for for vegetable seeds and for soybeans and wheat and rice and corn, but but tailoring them to what the consumers want in china specifically and and that's enabling us to fuel our growth. So i in my career, which is a long career in agriculture, I've never seen the great of growth that we're experiencing in china today and the rapid advancement in both product technologies and digital tools and the digital tools for research for commercial purposes for reaching out to farmers, but then going all the way to consumers connecting that entire value chain. It's really amazing play. That's extraordinary. Um I wonder for those of us who are not uh you know, so specialist in the in the biotech side of it, you mentioned gene editing. Um I often get a little bit confused about what the differences between gene modification and gene editing and china has been fairly cautious on gene modification. Uh my understanding is cotton and papaya are kind of the only crops where they really allowed that much scale. But it has make, as you suggest, a very big bat on gene editing and in many ways leads the world in these technologies. Can you help us to understand the difference between those two things? Yeah, it's fairly simple. So gene modification or GMOs that you've heard about have been around for 30 years have been demonstrated safe throughout the world by trillions of meals being eaten. But there's still some pushback by consumers because they hear things that aren't scientifically true. But anyway, what GMOs are are taking a gene from another organism, usually a bacteria in soil and putting it into the plant. So a plant, like a corn plant then uses that gene to produce a protein to do something like resist insects. As an example, gene editing. You don't take a gene from another organism. You just go to the genes in an organism. So you go to the gene in a corn plant for example and you edit a specific gene. So you can turn it off or you can turn it up to do more or you can change it and by doing that without another organism's genes. Um what you're doing is you're selling accelerating evolution because these these these jeans Changes would happen anyway over time, but they just might take 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, you're making them happen in a laboratory quickly and seeing what the results are. So that technology is considered more acceptable by consumers often. And china has decided to take a strong leadership position in that that technology, both for human health and for agriculture, for plant health. And so we've been focusing on the, on the plant health piece of that and enabling plants to do things like resist drought or longer shelf life. So you don't have as much food waste. So it both and making plants more nutritious and sometimes making them taste better. So an example would be taking tomatoes and taking out the bad tasting, stopping the bad tasting chemicals from being produced by a plant so it tastes sweeter and people are more likely to eat the tomatoes and so snack healthier versus trying sugary snacks. So it's there are all kinds of things that you can do to make plants healthier to make them more nutritious and to help have them withstand these climate change problems and be part of the solution to climate change. So it's a great technology that accelerates Evolution breeding. That's how does China do in terms of, you mentioned, it has a leadership role. How does China do in terms of patents and and uh and other kind of research breakthroughs and so in gene editing, 75% of the world's patents in agriculture, gene editing are coming out of China now. So china is not only become a player, has become clear leaders in this area and that's what we're tapping into both with our own research, but also in combination with chinese institutes. And what's really important is it's great to have research and it's great to do need things with technology. But the real important thing is is doing things that make a difference to consumers And in china helped achieve the chinese government goals of of food security of better nutrition, of lifting up farmers, poor farmers to have them more profitable and to having consumers healthier. So having healthier food and also very important. Agriculture Today contributes about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions through better practices, better products. And gene editing can help make this happen. We're going to take and we're already making significant progress agriculture to carbon neutral and that meets the china goals of carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2060. We're going to have agriculture take a leading role in making that happen. So I think you've identified some opportunities for, you know, by working with seeds to actually reduce the methane emissions from from livestock couch, which is a correct big part of the global climate change challenge. That's remarkable. Yeah. So for example, we've got something called Energy and corn where we've enabled corn to be more digestible. So we've we've we've bred the corn so that cows can digest it better And they need 5% less crop to grow the same amount of meat or the same military And they admit 10% less methane. That's a huge step forward with one c product. And that's just one example of how we're really transforming agriculture to be part of the solution to climate change. Well, this is really extraordinary. You know, at a time when there is so much talk about decoupling between china and the west. I mean you're a remarkable example of a european company that has been acquired by a chinese company working very effectively in the china space to identify solutions to what are really very significant global challenges. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. My pleasure flag. Great being with you