The Intersection of Mathematics, Agriculture and Big Data
Enter the Syngenta Crop Challenge and put your analytical skills to the test for a chance to win up to $5,000.

The population of Earth is growing by 200,000 people per day and is projected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050, yet our world is running out of cropland — land needed to produce food. And we’re currently using our arable land and water 50 percent faster than the planet can sustain. At the same time, the crops farmers plant face an unprecedented set of obstacles due to increasingly limited growing conditions and climate change.

How will we be able to grow enough food to meet world demand?

Today, the agriculture industry works to maximize the amount of food we gain from crops by breeding plants with the strongest, highest-yielding genetics. Scientists at research and development organizations like Syngenta create more resilient plants by breeding and then selecting the best offspring, over time, to provide to farmers.

We’ve proven that data-driven strategies can help our industry breed better seeds that require fewer resources and are adaptable to more diverse environments. Developing models that identify robust patterns in our experimental data may help scientists more accurately choose seeds that increase the productivity of the crops we plant – and will help address the growing global food demand.

How can we use data to accomplish this?

RESEARCH QUESTION
Can environmental data be aggregated into useful metrics representing stresses encountered by corn throughout a growing season? Can these metrics be used to discriminate between hybrids tolerant and susceptible to the stresses they represent?

EVALUATION CRITERIA
The entries will be evaluated based on:

• Novel ideas used to define stress metrics and classify hybrids for stress tolerance
• How well your classifications agree with Syngenta’s internal knowledge of hybrid stress tolerance
• Simplicity and intuitiveness of the solution
• Evaluation of factors included in the decision process
• Clarity in the explanation
• The quality and clarity of the finalist’s presentation at the 2019 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research

Deadline for Submissions: JAN 18, 2019

Website:Syngenta Crop Challenge