Multifunctional Landscapes is a program of the Syngenta company that promotes biodiversity in agriculture. “Our objective is to generate the development of pollinators, such as bees, in agricultural environments”, explained the Sales and Marketing manager, José Inciarte.
They serve as refuges where greater floral diversity is generated, with various species of plants. This, carried out in small areas, promotes “a lot” the development of pollinators.
The agricultural environment in Uruguay is characterized by few large crops, such as soy or corn plantations. “That limits the feeding of the pollinators,” specified Inciarte. That is why this project means “a tremendous help to biodiversity in agriculture”.
Syngenta is an international company of Swiss origin founded in 2000, which manufactures products for agriculture. It arrived in Uruguay six years ago and, since then, it has not stopped specifying support to develop its activity: the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Beekeeping Commission and the Faculty of Sciences.
“This is a project that seeks to combine some coexistence difficulties that exist between agriculture and beekeeping”
José Inciarte, Sales and Marketing Manager of Syngenta in Uruguay
Syngenta maintains an agreement with the educational institution of Udelar, where the researcher Estela Santos carries out the monitoring of the impact of this program on pollinators. Thanks to this, you can measure how much these actions contribute when applied to ecosystems. The agreement with the Faculty of Sciences is very important for the organization, since, according to Inciarte explained, “this allows giving scientific value to the program.”
In more places
The Multifunctional Landscapes program seeks to develop biodiversity refuges in as many geographic locations as possible. The former were made only by Syngenta based on their own efforts. The support of organizations has made it possible to generate a much larger network of this type of shelter, where companies and agricultural producers also participate.
In addition, in recent times Syngenta has also developed the program on the edges of the roads and on the shoulders to generate these spaces of floral diversity.
When Syngenta began operating in Uruguay, the project was being implemented in two or three parts of the country, while today that number has risen to 15. “The idea is to take the program on a much larger scale even”José Inciarte told El Observador.
The project is one of the ten finalist intrapreneurships in this sustainable edition of EmprendO.
More than 100 pilots and aviation company owners attended a seminar organized by Syngenta and other organizations in 2015
At Syngenta today there are four people plus a technician. Eventually people are hired to tour the interior, in each of the points where this program is implemented.
“We see that little by little we gain partners, companies and agricultural and fruit producers have joined. They help us to multiply the diffusion of this type of program and that is reaching more and more people”, added the Marketing manager.
sustainable agriculture
Inciarte believes that agriculture is no longer enough, but “we must start doing sustainable agriculture to conserve resources, and that our children and grandchildren receive the fields in the same or better way than we have.”
“It is a key sector for our economy. A program like this aims to give it sustainability, generating better environments for the proliferation of pollinators and, therefore, better environments for beekeeping. It is an excellent opportunity to support a program that strengthens sustainability and biodiversity in Uruguay’s agriculture ”, concluded José Inciarte on why Syngenta should win this edition of EmprendO 2021.
