The Good Growth Plan

Fernanda is a biologist with a deep concern for sustainability. In the academic field, she studied the impact of landscape and native vegetation on bee´s communities and the provision of pollination service for crops. In her corporate career, she worked for Syngenta as a Sustainability Coordinator in Brazil for two years and recently she took on the role of Sustainable & Responsible Business Lead for the Andean region.

As part of the Sustainable & Responsible business team in Syngenta, Fernanda coordinates the local projects of the company’s Good Growth Plan. This is a worldwide, companywide movement started in 2013. Syngenta works with its partners to help farmers improve their livelihoods and address urgent challenges like climate change, soil erosion and biodiversity loss.

Fernanda joined the initiative in 2018 and has worked on projects such as Nucoffee Sustentia, a project run in partnership with UTZ so that coffee smallholders can earn certification for high standards of cultivation, working conditions and care for people and the environment. Another was Tomatec, a project to disseminate good agricultural practices and integrated pest management to small tomato growers to reduce their residue and increase their income.

In 2020, Fernanda led two projects as part of the Good Growth Plan. The first was Ecoaguas, a project working with Colombian farmers to restore riparian forest and conserve watersheds. It supports sugarcane and banana producers in highland and lowland areas. Between September 2019 and October 2020, they have planted over 56,000 trees from more than 60 species in 3 Colombian states.

Fernanda also coordinates Operation Pollinator, creating essential habitat for pollinators in field margins on commercial farms. In addition to the benefit to the environment, it improves crop yields and secures sustainable farming. As part of the project operational in 48 countries, Fernanda has helped implement these practices on two coffee farms in Colombia.