Crop Protection and Seeds

UK agriculture touches our lives on a daily basis. There are over three million hectares of croppable land producing crops for both UK consumption and export markets. It is estimated that as much as 40% of the world’s food production would be lost to pests and diseases without crop protection products. Visit our Crop Centre for more.

Walk into any major supermarket in the UK and you will find a huge range of fresh fruit and vegetables, which is only made possible by using crop protection products. If we stopped using crop protection then food shortages would mean higher prices and far less choice in the food we eat.

Crop protection products keep crops safe from attack by insects, weeds and diseases. But they also help us make better A farmer spraying his sugar beet with a crop protection productuse of scarce resources such as land, water and labour.
By improving productivity on existing farmland we reduce the need for new land to be brought into agricultural production. Crop protection plays an important role in protecting biodiversity by reducing deforestation. Our formulation science ensures our products are effective at very low application rates, ensuring safety.

The benefits of our crop protection products

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• They are vital in producing crops of high quality with minimum wastage.
• In some instances, they increase the nutritional value of food, for example fungicide treatment can improve the protein content in cereals.
• Crop protection products ensure food reaches the shops in good condition, but also extends the seasons for a wide range of produce.

Seeds in the UK

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Syngenta breeds a wide range of field and vegetable crops which play a vital role in helping UK growers to raise the quality and quantity of their produce.

Field Crops

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Cereal Crops - Syngenta is the only company in the world currently developing and commercialising hybrid winter barley, helping to address the demands of growing more from less. 

Wheat - the UK’s main cereal crop, with over two million hectares grown annually. Quality wheat is used to produce many different foods including bread, biscuits, cakes and breakfast cereals; feed wheat is used as an animal feed. New markets include distilling, starch and bioethanol are opening up.

Barley - just over one million hectares of barley is grown in the UK each year. Malting barley is used in the production of beer and whisky while feed barley is used as an animal feed. Syngenta is the only plant breeder of Hybrid Barley.  Search 'Hyvido' for more information

Oilseed Rape
Oilseed RapeYellow fields of oilseed rape are one of the countryside’s prettiest sights, covering over 0.5 million hectares each year. The seed is crushed and used to produce rapeseed oil which is one of the healthiest culinary oils. Oilseed rape is also used in animal feed.

Maize  
MaizeMost of the UK’s 100,000 hectares of maize is forage maize which is used to produce high quality silage for dairy and beef cattle. Historically, the area of maize grown in the UK has been relatively small, but it is increasing as breeders develop new varieties more suitable to the UK climate. 

Sugar BeetSugar Beet
UK farmers grow over 7.5 million tonnes of sugar beet each year on 120,000 hectares of land. Sugar produced from beet is a key ingredient in many foods and drinks and Syngenta varieties produce the equivalent of over half a million bags of sugar in the UK every year. 

Vegetables
VegetablesFresh vegetables are an essential part of a healthy diet. Our vegetable seeds are provided under our S&G brand. We breed, market and distribute high quality vegetable seed varieties to satisfy everyone from the grower to the consumer.

In the UK we offer a wide range of vegetable seeds, for brassicas, salads, alliums and more.