The inaugural GreenBiz BLOOM 23, held concurrently with GreenBiz VERGE 23 in San Jose, Calif., attracted leaders from NGOs, food companies, technology and academia to discuss the link between the climate and biodiversity crises and how stakeholders across the value chain can enact meaningful change for the benefit of both.
For Syngenta, the show served as a chance to accomplish two of the input company’s goals — first, to bring their new BioDiversity Sensor Project to a broader climate tech audience and second, to ensure that companies in the agriculture industry have a presence in the climate conversation.
“Agriculture has the unique potential to address the global climate crisis. As an innovation leader, Syngenta is investing significantly in developing solutions that drive the sustainability of agriculture,” said Liz Hunt, Head of Sustainable and Responsible Business (SRB) for North America. “Our participation in BLOOM 23 was an excellent opportunity to bring agriculture to the forefront of the conversation and highlight solutions that companies like Syngenta can provide. These solutions, combined with ongoing conversations we’re having with growers about promoting biodiversity while optimizing yield, have been especially important steps in demonstrating the role we can play in protecting the environment.”
Syngenta team members were also excited to discuss conservation agriculture work with largely non-endemic audiences that flooded both BLOOM and VERGE.
“We were thrilled at the opportunity to discuss the unique role that agriculture can play in promoting biodiversity and restoring nature with so many people, especially those who noted that they had little exposure to farming,” Hunt said, adding that one conversation about the sustainability of hybrid seeds allowed her to dive more deeply into the relationship between food security and sustainability.
An area where Hunt noted that synergies overlapped amongst all participants revolved around data and technology — the basis for Syngenta’s new project on display at the show.
“The audience really acknowledged the importance of novel technologies to improve the biodiversity data gap from farmlands during the conference,” said Dayna Gross, SRB Programs and Partnerships Manager. “Seeing the demand for scalable biodiversity monitoring technology is strong across agriculture, mining, food, risk profiling industries and general readiness to collaborate was especially encouraging.”
“So, we found Syngenta’s commitment to developing nature-centric solutions like our new Biodiversity Sensor Project, along with our efforts to collaborate with academic and scientific institutions, was well received,” Gross added.
While the company received several firm commitments from early adopters to scale their new technology, the experience was more broadly beneficial to Syngenta’s sustainability goals and team.
“Many industries worldwide are taking steps to re-invent themselves with nature-centric solutions to remain sustainable, profitable and relevant in the busy marketplace,” Hunt said. “Agriculture is now on the frontier of evolution through better, safer and scalable technologies to serve our growers. However, there is very low visibility in the public domain and across businesses regarding how these technologies are being developed or used.
“Conferences, such as Bloom 23, that attract stakeholders across multiple industries are key to facilitating meaningful conversations about the importance of regenerative agriculture and often serve as launching points for crafting collaborative solutions and attracting the next generation of sustainable agriculture leaders,” she added.
