February 28, 2024
At Syngenta Vegetable Seeds, our breeders seek to deliver unmatched quality and expertise. We do this by improving criteria such as the quality of the fruit, yield potential, and the plants’ characteristics.
These factors along with virus resistance allow us to offer farmers varieties with good yield potential that help maximize profitability. But innovation does not stop there. We know that another challenging task which growers face is hiring and retaining farm labor.
Squash production is being challenged every day. With more climatic challenges, pest pressure, and labor shortages, growers need solutions that help address each of these unique struggles. Finding squash varieties with plant structures and uniform harvest timing makes a big difference for our growers.
Squash Solutions Based On Reserach and Feedback
One of our main priorities is investing in making our growers’ lives easier. Since 2019, we continually work with and invest in research and development. This begins with our experts spending time with farmers, listening, and understanding needs and challenges.
Concerns include the lack of and retention of workers. Just as our innovations in genetics have improved plant health, our research suggests that refining plant shape contributes to better work environments. We have already begun focusing on squash plants.
As the fruit flourishes in heat, daily and frequent picking is necessary to prevent food loss. In our research, we found that farm workers spend 20-30% less time harvesting when plants are uniformly shaped. Placing focus on developing the straightest plants, which grow evenly creates ease for workers during harvest. When growers show an investment in their workers it builds loyalty.
“Growers are at the heart of everything we do. Listening and understanding is crucial. We have been delighted to hear feedback from partnering growers,” said Peter Szungyi, Syngenta Vegetable Seeds Portfolio Manager Watermelon and Squash. “They feel our discussions followed by focusing on workforce innovations have led to building further trust and loyalty in us to always continue investing and offering ways to solve their challenges.”
Labor Reduction Could Help Save Money
We have learned that labor costs can represent up to 60% of the total cost of production, a significant factor in determining your profits. By reducing the time spent harvesting, we can lower the cost of production and increase the farmer’s profitability.
Partnering farmers have expressed their appreciation for innovations motivated by non-traditional aspects of growing crops.
“The creation of genuine value through innovations is truly making a real-world difference through bettering working conditions and increasing farmers’ profitability,” Szungyi said.
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