Syngenta — BrandWiki

Syngenta

Overview

Syngenta AG

type	State-owned
foundation	November 13, 2000
industry	Agrobusiness, chemicals
area served	Worldwide
location	Basel, Switzerland
key people	Jeff Rowe (CEO)‡R1R‡ Steven Hawkins (President Syngenta Crop Protection)‡R2R‡ Justin Wolf (President Syngenta Seeds)‡R3R‡
products	Crops (fungicides, herbicides, insecticides) field and vegetable seeds flowers nutrients digital services (maps, weather data)
divisions	Syngenta Crop Protection Syngenta Seeds
revenue	US$16.981 billion ‡R4R‡
revenue year	2024
net income	US$261 million ‡R4R‡
net income year	2024
owner	Sinochem
footnotes	Financial Report 2023

Syngenta AG is a global agricultural technology company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.[5] It primarily covers crop protection and seeds for farmers. Syngenta is part of the Syngenta Group, entirely owned by Sinochem, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.[6]

Syngenta was founded in 2000 by the merger of the agrichemical businesses of Novartis and AstraZeneca, and acquired by China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) in 2017.[7] In 2020, the Syngenta Group was formed, bringing together Syngenta (Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta Seeds), Adama, and the agricultural business of Sinochem, now called Syngenta Group China, under a single entity.

History

Based in Basel, Switzerland, Syngenta was formed on 13 November 2000 by the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and AstraZeneca Agrochemicals.[9][10]

In 2004, Syngenta Seeds purchased Garst, the North American corn and soybean business of Advanta, as well as Golden Harvest Seeds.[11][12]

As of 2014, Syngenta's main competitors were Monsanto Company, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Bayer CropScience and DuPont Pioneer.[13]

In 2014, Monsanto sought to acquire Syngenta for a reported $40 billion, but Syngenta rejected the offer.[14][15] Since April 2015, Monsanto and Syngenta had been working with their investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs respectively on a deal. The U.S. Treasury tried to stop the deal for tax inversion.[16] Syngenta's Board of Directors rejected an even better offer by Monsanto during August 2015, and Monsanto withdrew from the negotiations on 26 August.[17]

In February 2016, ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, offered to purchase Syngenta for $43 billion (480 Swiss francs per share), a deal which the company "unanimously recommended to shareholders".[18] In April 2017, the Federal Trade Commission, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and the European Commissioner for Competition approved of the acquisition.[19] This was the largest takeover by a Chinese company to date, and it caused criticism.[20] To secure approval, ChemChina agreed to divest from pesticide production of paraquat, abamectin, and chlorothalonil.[21][22] The transaction closed on 26 June 2017.[23]

In the following years, several acquisitions were made to expand the business. In November 2017, Syngenta agreed to purchase Nidera from Cofco International.[24] In March 2018, Syngenta announced plans to acquire Strider, a Brazilian agtech company.[25] In July, Syngenta acquired Floranova, a flower and vegetable seeds breeder based in the UK.[26] In September 2019, the company acquired all the assets of The Cropio Group, an agri-technology company.[27][28]

In June 2020, ChemChina transferred its entire agricultural business to the Syngenta Group,[29] which now also includes Adama and the agricultural activities of Sinochem in addition to Syngenta.[30][31] The Syngenta Group is a Chinese company with its management headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.[32]

At the end of 2020, Syngenta announced the acquisition of Valagro, a manufacturer of biological crop protection products headquartered in Atessa, Italy.[33] The company continues to operate as an independent brand.

Acquisition history (selection)

The following is an illustration of the company's mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs and historical predecessors:

Corporate structure

Syngenta (Syngenta AG), consists of US-headquartered Syngenta Seeds and Swiss-headquartered Syngenta Crop Protection businesses. Syngenta AG, Israeli off-patent crop protection company ADAMA, and Syngenta Group China make up Syngenta Group.[43][44] The Group was formed in June 2020. While the Group is registered in Shanghai, China[45], its administrative headquarters and central offices are located in Basel, Switzerland.[46] Syngenta Group is owned by Chinese-owned Sinochem, through its fully owned subsidiary, ChemChina.

Products and services

Syngenta has eight primary product lines which it develops, markets and sells worldwide; Its five product lines for pesticides are selective herbicides, non-selective herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and seed care. Three product lines for seed products include corn and soya, other field crops and vegetables.[50] In 2014, sales from crop protection products accounted for US $11.381 billion, i.e. 75% of total sales.[51] Field crop seeds include both hybrid seeds and genetically engineered seeds, some of which enter the food chain and become part of genetically modified food. According to Syngenta, in the US their "proprietary triple stack corn seeds expanded to represent around 25 percent of units sold."[52] In 2010, the US EPA approved insecticidal trait stacks including Syngenta's AGRISURE VIPTERA™ gene, which offers resistance to certain corn pests.[52] Syngenta cross-licenses its proprietary genes with Dow AgroSciences and thus is able to include Dow's Herculex I and Herculex RW insect resistance traits in its seeds.[52] It sells a VMAX soybean that is resistant to glyphosate herbicide.[52] In 2021 the company partnered with Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine to develop "sustainable weedkillers" by using AI deep-learning tools.[53]

Syngenta brands include Actara (Thiamethoxam), Agrisure (corn with Viptera trait), Alto (Cyproconazole), Amistar (azoxystrobin), Avicta, Axial, Bicep II, Bravo, Callisto, Celest, Cruiser (TMX, Thiamethoxam), Dividend, Dual, Durivo, Elatus, Fusilade, Force, Golden Harvest Seeds, Gramoxone, Karate, Northrup-King (NK), Proclaim, Revus, Ridomil, Rogers, Score, Seguris, S&G, Tilt, Topik, Touchdown, Vertimec and Vibrance.[50] In 2007, Queensland University in Australia contracted with Syngenta to research different inputs for biofuels as a renewable energy source.[54]

Former products

Syngenta's predecessor, Ciba-Geigy, introduced the insecticide Galecron chlordimeform in 1966, and it was removed from the market in 1988.[55] In 1976, Ciba-Geigy told regulatory authorities that it was temporarily withdrawing chlordimeform because ongoing long-term toxicology studies—particularly studies to determine if long-term exposure could cause cancer—showed that it was causing cancer and that it has already started to monitor its workers' exposure and had found chlordimeform and its metabolites in the urine of its workers.[56] Ciba-Geigy then applied for and was granted, permission to market Galecron at lower doses for use only on cotton.[57] However, as further long-term monitoring data was obtained, regulators banned chlordimeform in 1988. In 1995, class action in the US, Ciba-Geigy agreed to cover costs for employee health monitoring and treatment. In 2005, Syngenta reported that employee health monitoring was continuing at the company's Monthey, Switzerland site.[58]

Biofuels

Controversies

In 2007, Syngenta came under scrutiny by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This was due to third-party sales of products in countries such as Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.[83]

In the past, Syngenta's crop protection products have also been the subject of repeated criticism. The company was accused of including the sale of highly toxic pesticides in its business model.[84] In 2012, the company was therefore nominated for the "Public Eye Award", which denounces companies with questionable human rights practices.[85] In 2023, the Arkansas attorney general Tim Griffin ordered Syngenta to sell land in the state under a prohibition against land sales to entities with "a connection to a country subject to the federal International Traffic in Arms Regulations."[86]

Brazil

On 21 October 2007, a Brazilian peasant organization, the Landless Workers' Movement, led a group of landless farmers in an invasion of one of the company's seed research farms, in protest against genetically-engineered ("genetically modified") vegetables and in hopes of obtaining land for landless families to cultivate. After the invasion had begun, a team from NF Security arrived in a minibus and a fight with gunfire ensued. A trespasser and a security guard were killed, and some trespassers and other security guards were wounded.[87]

The Brazilian police investigation, which concluded in November 2007, blamed the confrontation and death of the trespasser on nine employees and the owner of NF Security; the leader of MST was blamed for trespassing. The inquiry found that the invader was fatally shot in the abdomen and in the leg. The security guard was shot in the head. Eight others were injured, five of them invaders.[88]

The Civil Court of Cascavel granted an order for the repossession of the site on 20 December 2007[89] and on 12 June 2008, the remaining MST members left the Santa Teresa site they had been occupying.[90] On 14 October 2008, Syngenta donated the 123-hectare station to the Agronomy Institute of Paraná (IAPAR) for research into biodiversity, recovery of degraded areas and agriculture production systems, as well as environmental education programs.

In November 2015, Judge Pedro Ivo Moreiro, of the 1st Civil Court of Cascavel, ruled that Syngenta must pay compensation to the family of Valmir Mota de Oliveira ("Keno"), who was killed in the attack, and to Isabel Nascimento dos Santos who was injured.[91][92] In his sentence the judge stated that "to refer to what happened as a confrontation is to close one's eyes to reality, since […] there is no doubt that, in truth, it was a massacre disguised as repossession of property".[91][92] The version of events put forward by Syngenta was rejected by the Court. In May 2010, Syngenta was condemned by the IV Permanent People's Tribunal for human rights violations in Brazil.[93]

Tyrone Hayes

There has been a long-running conflict between Syngenta and University of California at Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes.

In 2010, Syngenta forwarded an ethics complaint to the University of California Berkeley, complaining that Hayes had been sending harassing e-mails to Syngenta scientists. Legal counsel from the university responded that Hayes had acknowledged sending letters having "unprofessional and offensive" content, and that he had agreed not to use similar language in future communications.[94]

According to an article in the 10 February 2014, issue of The New Yorker, Syngenta's public-relations team took steps to discredit Hayes, whose research is purported to suggest that the Syngenta-produced chemical atrazine was responsible for abnormal development of reproductive organs in frogs. The article states that the company paid third-party critics to write articles discrediting Hayes's work, planned to have his wife investigated, and planted hostile audience members at scientific talks given by Hayes.[95]

During a 21 February 2014, interview conducted on Democracy Now, Hayes reiterated the claims.[96]

Response to Russian invasion of Ukraine

Syngenta continues to operate in Russia despite the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and international sanctions imposed on the Russian economy.[98] The company remains a major player in the Russian agricultural sector, supplying pesticides and seeds to local farmers. It has been criticized for maintaining business-as-usual in the country, earning an "F" grade in a ranking of companies that have failed to exit or reduce their activities in Russia.[99] It was condemned for prioritizing profits over ethics.[100] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denounced companies that continue operating in Russia, stating that the Russian market is "flooded with blood."[100] Syngenta has not only remained in Russia but has also announced price increases on its products, raising questions about whether it is exploiting the situation for financial gain. Critics argue that its continued operations strengthen Russia's agricultural industry, indirectly supporting the country’s war efforts.[101]