I SAFE (Inculcating Safety Awareness for Farmer Empowerment) – Helping Farmers Stay Safe & Healthy.
Syngenta is a leading Agri-input company helping millions of farmers around the world to grow safe and nutritious food while taking care of the planet. It also helps in improving the sustainability, quality, and safety of agriculture by providing the best scientific and innovative crop solutions.
The company is engaged in crop protection chemicals, committed to providing farming communities with a safe environment while undertaking agricultural activities. Stewardship is key and the company ensures responsible and ethical management of their products throughout their life cycle, from design to disposal. Syngenta has consistently taken the lead maximizing the benefits of its products and services to farmers while minimizing potential risks.
I SAFE (Inculcating Safety Awareness for Farmer Empowerment) spread across the key states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, and Haryana among others, primarily ensures safe and sustainable farming practices. The program follows a bottoms-up approach and is implemented in close partnership with state governments and NGOs to provide health, hygiene, and safety awareness to everyone engaged in the fields.
To date over 1,50,000 growers and their families have been trained on various aspects of health, hygiene, and safety. A key component of the training sessions includes personal one-on-one counseling sessions on the psychological aspects and the importance of being responsible and safe as a bread-earner of the family. The sessions emphasize safe storage and disposal of crop protection to avoid small children accessing the chemicals.
Syngenta also organizes regular awareness campaigns through posters, pamphlets, and mobile vans to share safe-use messages.
Another unique feature is the certified spray men program to address the problem of negligence and irresponsible behavior of not adhering to following instructions while spraying and handling crop protection products.
Going a step further, the company also ensures that accidental exposure cases are handled professionally as toxicology is to be treated differently. ‘Recognition and Treatment for Pesticide Exposure awareness sessions are conducted by experienced toxicologists for the district doctors regularly.
Syngenta runs a fully equipped Mobile Health van wherever necessary to ensure that farmers and their families in remote areas who cannot access the primary health centers can avail of health facilities. I SAFE is a holistic program looking at all aspects of the safe handling of the products.