The best digital tools are the ones farmers barely notice
With Cropwise Seed Selector, growers can receive tailored seed recommendations through familiar channels such as WhatsApp and email, combining Syngenta's agronomic expertise with Salesforce-powered customer engagement.
Long before a combine enters a field, growers make a decision that can shape everything that follows. Which seed should be planted in which field?
The answer depends on a complex web of variables. Soil composition, local environmental conditions, disease pressures and yield objectives all influence whether a particular hybrid variety will thrive. Farmers have always relied on a combination of experience, local knowledge and trusted advice to navigate those choices. Yet as farming becomes increasingly data-rich, identifying the best option has become both easier and more complicated at the same time.
Syngenta possesses decades of agronomic knowledge generated through extensive field trials across different geographies, crops and growing conditions. The challenge was finding a practical way to place that knowledge in the hands of growers when they need it most.
That challenge gave rise to Cropwise Seed Selector, a digital tool designed to help farmers identify hybrids most likely to perform in their specific field conditions. Today, the platform supports growers across multiple European markets and a range of hybrid crops, including corn, sunflower and barley. Yet the real innovation lies not in the recommendation itself, but in how that recommendation reaches the farmer.
Turning decades of trial data into a simple recommendation
When Alberto Matthei, Agriculture Solutions Portfolio Lead, Europe, demonstrates Cropwise Seed Selector, the process appears straightforward.
A grower identifies a field, selects a crop and enters a small amount of information about agronomic preferences. Within moments, the platform generates a recommendation tailored to that specific situation.
"We use all the information we have from our trials to identify the hybrid that is most suitable for that particular environment," Alberto explains. "What the grower sees is a recommendation. What sits behind it is years of data and experience."
Farm manager of an agricultural estate in Germany looking for the best corn variety for his fields with Cropwise Seed Selector.
Farm manager of an agricultural estate in Germany looking for the best corn variety for his fields with Cropwise Seed Selector.
The system analyses environmental characteristics and compares them with results from Syngenta's extensive trial network, identifying locations and conditions that most closely resemble a grower's circumstances. Instead of asking farmers to sift through endless product data, the platform distils that complexity into practical guidance that can support a planting decision.
The process reflects a broader shift taking place across agriculture. As the volume of available data continues to grow, the value increasingly comes not from providing more information, but from making information easier to use.
That realisation led Alberto's team to an important question: even if a recommendation is accurate, how do you ensure farmers actually engage with it?
Meeting farmers where they are
Many digital tools fail for a surprisingly simple reason. They ask people to change their behaviour.
“The most powerful technologies may not be the ones farmers notice most,” says Andreas Lankow, Agricultural Solutions Portfolio Head, Syngenta. “They may be the ones that fit so naturally into existing ways of working that they become almost invisible, helping growers move from uncertainty to confidence without adding another layer of complexity to an already demanding profession.”
Users are often expected to download another application, create another account and learn another interface before they can access the value the technology promises to deliver.
"We didn't want to build something that required farmers to learn an entirely new platform," Alberto says. "The objective was to make the information accessible in a way that already fits into their daily routine."
As a result, Cropwise Seed Selector has been designed around the communication channels farmers already use. Depending on market and preference, recommendations can be delivered through email, WhatsApp, or SMS. Rather than asking growers to come to the system, the system comes to them.
That distinction may sound subtle, but it addresses one of the persistent challenges in digital agriculture. Farmers are already managing an extraordinary range of responsibilities. Technology that demands additional effort often struggles to gain traction. Technology that reduces effort tends to be embraced and trusted.
Growers themselves appear to value that approach. Feedback collected through the programme consistently highlights the platform's ease of use alongside the relevance of the recommendations it provides.
“I like that I can mark my own field and choose which hybrids I want to sow. That’s something I find very useful,” says Ivan Todorovic, a corn farmer in Šumadija district, Serbia.
The lesson is one increasingly recognised across industries: users rarely care how sophisticated a technology is. They care whether it helps them accomplish a task more easily.
Syngenta Digital Agronomist Jonas Martini (right) helping the manager of a German farm with seed selection using Cropwise.
Syngenta Digital Agronomist Jonas Martini (right) helping the manager of a German farm with seed selection using Cropwise.
Bridge between digital and human relationships
For farmers, receiving a recommendation may feel like the end of the process. For Syngenta, it represents the beginning of a conversation.
Cropwise Seed Selector is connected to Salesforce, including Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, helping transform grower interactions into more personalised customer experiences. When growers engage with recommendations, those interactions can inform follow-up communications, marketing journeys and support from local commercial teams.
The objective is not to replace personal relationships with technology. Alberto sees the platform as a way of extending them.
Whether growers use the tool on their own or work directly with our sales teams, the important thing is that both groups can benefit from the same agronomic knowledge and recommendations.
Whether growers use the tool on their own or work directly with our sales teams, the important thing is that both groups can benefit from the same agronomic knowledge and recommendations.
Some growers use the self-service experience independently, particularly those who may not have regular interactions with a sales representative. Larger growers often encounter the same recommendation capabilities through direct conversations with Syngenta teams.
"We have growers who use the tool on their own and others who work directly with our sales teams," Alberto says. "The important thing is that both groups can benefit from the same agronomic knowledge and recommendations."
By connecting recommendations with engagement, the platform helps ensure that valuable agronomic insights do not remain isolated within a digital interaction. Instead, they become part of an ongoing effort to help growers make more informed decisions throughout the season.
Making sophisticated technology feel effortless
The history of digital innovation is often framed as a story of increasingly advanced technology.
Cropwise Seed Selector suggests a different perspective. Its success does not stem solely from analytics, trial data or customer engagement platforms, important as those capabilities are. It stems from the decision to design around the grower rather than around the technology itself.
The farmer who receives a recommendation through WhatsApp is unlikely to think about trial databases, predictive models or Salesforce workflows. Nor should they. What matters is that a complex decision becomes easier to make.
