On November 11, global solicitation on the “Third Global Poverty Reduction Case” jointly organized by International Poverty Reduction Center in China, World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and other institutions were officially released. MAP, a modern agricultural technology service platform under Syngenta Group China, won the Best Poverty Reduction Case with its practical case of “industrial technology + digital technology” reshaping the food industry chain in Funan. This is the second time that MAP’s poverty reduction practice has won the best case, and last time was the sugar beet industry in Ar Horqin Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Funan County in Anhui Province is a major grain producer in China, “big but not strong” though. It was once a national-level poverty-stricken county. In 2019, with the support of China’s National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration (NFSRA), MAP started to have presence in Funan. In the face of industrial development problems such as retail operations, diverse seed varieties, and uneven product quality, MAP deeply cooperated with NFSRA and Funan County, built a guarantee mechanism for policy guidance, enterprise services, and collective support, and leveraged the “company + cooperative + base + farmer” model to forge shared interests, so as to achieve large-scale and intensive land management. Embracing the advantages of Syngenta Group’s agricultural technologies including germplasm and crop nutrition in China, MAP selected five high-quality wheat varieties for centralized promotion in Funan County, and via its self-developed digital agriculture platform - MAP Smart Agriculture System, to provide free remote sensing field inspection, farmland precise meteorology, and early warning of diseases and insect pests for poverty-alleviated households, to enable wheat planting get rid of traditional production methods and accelerate its access into modern industrial development. With the service of the whole industry chain, MAP has increased the average income of poverty-alleviated households by 200 yuan per mu, driving the local agricultural production income to exceed 40 million yuan.

Funan County today is not only a major grain producer, but has also cultivated a “Funan model” for rural revitalization. Its development model has been replicated in more than 100 counties across China. In the future, Syngenta Group China will continue to leverage its business and technological advantages to double the fruitful results, focus on enhancing the value of the agricultural industry chain and promoting common prosperity, so as to make continuous and greater contributions to ensuring food security and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization.