Our Partners | The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture

The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) is primarily an implementing and investing foundation that looks to catalyze system-level change that benefits pre-commercial smallholders. To do this we believe it best to operate through multi-stakeholder partnership frameworks. SFSA’s grant-making activities are limited and focus on activities closely aligned with our strategic focal areas. Typically, we provide funding on a matching basis to select organizations, mainly Agriculture Research Organizations that work in the countries and regions of interest to SFSA. We do not accept unsolicited funding proposals.

SFSA focuses on productivity and the inclusion of smallholder farmers in the arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia. SFSA has a particularly strong presence in East Africa, and it is expanding further into West Africa. SFSA is also growing in Asia, with established presence in India and Bangladesh, and a growing portfolio of activities in Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, as well as China.

Direct Contribution

Annual contributions and commitments to support core activities and enable innovation, replication, and scaling up.

Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships

Partnerships focused on system-level change with Governments, Philanthropic and Development Funders, Research Institutes, Commercial Businesses, Financial Institutions, Impact Investors, INGOs, and Academia to catalyze investment in a range of initiatives with the potential to benefit smallholder farmers at a significant scale.

Third-Party Funding and Innovative Finance

Co-investments and contributions from Private Foundations, Governments, Development Banks and Financial Institutions, Impact Investors, and other strategic partners from both the Public and Private Sectors to bring smallholder-appropriate innovation, business, and service delivery models, and commercial viability to scale. Such resources are welcome to be deployed directly into our supported programmes, as an option.

Public and Private Sector

SFSA collaborates with Public- and Private-Sector Partners to mobilize and leverage expertise, technology, and financial resources. We invest alongside our Partners, jointly financing and implementing innovations in sustainable and productive agriculture, development of service delivery models, and scaling of solutions and impact. Occasionally, we would commission a study and engage a Technical Partner to provide subject matter expertise on a particular area, such as seeds registration, agri-insurance policy, and food safety. More recently, we have entered into multi-sector joint ventures with various Provincial, National and Regional Governments, Impact Investors, Private Foundations, Social Enterprises, as well as International Donor Organizations, with some of these Partners playing multiple roles as Technical Advisor, Co-Implementor, and Co-Investor.

Technical Partners

Cooperation with academia, research institutes, subject matter experts, and technical advisors on discrete and specific mandates supporting project implementation. Examples include Policy Research, Surveys, and Market Study

International Potato Center

University of Bern

Syngenta AG

Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research

West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement- University of Ghana

New Markets Lab

The National Crops Resources Research Institute, Uganda

Investing and Financing Partners

Strategic partnership with key stakeholders to co-create, jointly invest and/or co-finance, and collectively innovate, develop and scale smallholder-appropriate agriculture and climate-resilient solutions