Aiming to find the right note
The Syngenta Foundation (SFSA) does a lot of doing. It also contributes a lot of thinking. Both areas of activity deserve - and receive - attention on paper as well. Write-ups form an important part of our work. As our website shows, however, what a "write-up" means in practice can vary enormously.
Some of our writing appears in scientific journals. A brand new example is a paper by our R&D Program Officer, Dominik Klauser. In January 2018, he published in the Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection. His topic? A daily and difficult concern in smallholder ag: "Challenges in monitoring and managing plant diseases in developing countries". Here's the paper.
As well as writing on his own, Dominik is also an experienced co-author. He is one of four SFSA employees among the many brains behind Technology generation to dissemination: lessons learned from the tef improvement project. Euphytica published this in January 2018, too.
Our Publications page also features some other recent forms of write-up.
One group, mind you, we can take no direct credit for: Our Director Simon Winter co-authored three papers shortly before joining us. These are on lessons from multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI) in ag, on MSI & climate change, and on climate risks and Tanzanian corn. You'll find the links in Simon's biography.
Like our initiatives themselves, our writing is often a partnership. The Publications page features several examples. Our Senior Scientific Advisor Viv Anthony co-edited a 2017 book on "The Business of Plant Breeding / Market led approaches to new variety design". That's closely related to our work on "Demand-Led Breeding".
A write-up doesn't need to be of book-length, however. Nor does everything require peer-review. Our Field Stories page includes four short case studies. They introduce you to two agri-entrepreneurs and other farmers from India.
Another form of write-ups are reports. Some projects in which we are no longer actively involved appear in our Archive section. Their pages typically include reviews and/or impact studies - like that for our former "Qorichacra" work with smallholders and McDonalds in Peru.
Reports are naturally also important at earlier stages of an initiative. One partner's website, for example, houses SFSA field reports from our joint soybean work. In some cases, there are also summaries available. Here, for example, is a one-pager on our radio extension work - it describes the results of Phase 1.
SFSA conferences generate reports as well. And every couple of years, we issue an overall review of our work. You'll examples of both categories here.
Feel there's something missing? Then it's your turn to write - to us. Our thanks in advance!