Syngenta and the Analytics Society of The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS^®) are proud to name Xiaocheng Li, Huaiyang Zhong, and Associate Professors David Lobell and Stefano Ermon, a team from Stanford University, as the winners of the inaugural Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics.

The team was awarded a $5,000 prize for their entry, “Hierarchy modeling of soybean variety yield and decision making for future planting plan,” which modeled a system for predicting soybean seed variety selection.

“It has been a wonderful experience working with Syngenta on this project, and we are excited about the impact our work can have on improving crop yields and addressing food security challenges,” said Xiaocheng Li. “Operations research and advanced analytics can contribute to variety development and evaluation, reducing costs and improved efficiency. Extracting useful insights from massive, unstructured datasets informed our findings and proves to us there is a lot of potential for modern operations research and computer science techniques in agriculture.”

The Challenge tasked participants to develop a model that predicts the seed varieties farmers should plant next season to maximize yield. The inaugural competition aimed to address the challenge of global food security by fueling innovation among experts applying advanced analytics in biochemistry and agriculture.

“Global food security is one of the greatest challenges facing the next generation, and there is a significant need to engage a broader talent base into agriculture,” said Joseph Byrum, Syngenta head of soybean seeds product development and lead for the Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics committee. “This competition clearly demonstrated that people outside and adjacent to the industry can make noteworthy contributions.”

“The submissions from the Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics represent best in class science,” Byrum said. “What is striking is the overall professionalism, quality, and effort that the finalists put into the presentations. The teams were clearly committed and had a deep connection to the challenge.”

Syngenta, an award-winning company for its innovation in plant analytics, proudly supports this competition sponsored by the Analytics Society of INFORMS. Syngenta donated the prize money from its 2015 Franz Edelman Award win in support of a commitment to run the Syngenta Crop Challenge for the next four years.

“Syngenta is a great example of a company using operations research to better both its own performance as well as to help better society,” said Melissa Moore, executive director of INFORMS. “In 2015 Syngenta won the Franz Edelman award for using operations research and analytics to make better breeding decisions to reduce the time and cost required to develop crops with high productivity. Their efforts, including the Crop Challenge in Analytics, are putting them at the forefront of utilizing operations research to transform the agriculture industry.”