BASEL, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Following the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on Friday, April 12, it was announced that Louise O. Fresco will join the Board of Directors as an Independent Non-Executive Director, effective April 12, 2019. Fresco is currently President of Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands. She combines a long academic career as a professor at both Wageningen and Amsterdam universities with extensive involvement in policy and development in Africa, Asia and Latin America. "We are delighted to have Louise join the Syngenta Board," said Frank Ning, Syngenta Chairman. "Her experience and expertise in sustainable healthy food production together with her ability to engage people in the benefits of science and agriculture will be greatly valued." This appointment comes just days after Syngenta announced it will accelerate its innovation to address the increasing challenges faced by farmers around the world including climate change, soil erosion and biodiversity loss, as well as changing consumer expectations and views on agricultural technology. Syngenta has made this commitment in response to listening sessions held at the end of 2018, during which there was a clear call for innovation and more action to address these challenges. "Joining the Board will give me a chance to work towards more sustainable food production and reducing the environmental impact based on the latest scientific insights," said Fresco. "I am particularly interested in how the best science can help smallholders increase yields sustainably." Fresco spent 10 years of her career as Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. She is a member of eight scientific academies, and has served on the boards of Rabobank and Unilever. Her book "Hamburgers in Paradise, the stories behind the food we eat," has been translated into 13 languages. She has published multiple books and writes a bi-weekly column in NRC, the leading evening newspaper of The Netherlands. She has also presented a 6-part documentary on food and development for Dutch public television, and in 2009 she was a speaker at the TED Conference in Palm Springs, California. About Syngenta Syngenta is one of the worlds leading agriculture companies. Our ambition is to help safely feed the world while taking care of the planet. We aim to improve the sustainability, quality and safety of agriculture with world class science and innovative crop solutions. Our technologies enable millions of farmers around the world to make better use of limited agricultural resources. With 28,000 people in more than 90 countries we are working to transform how crops are grown. Through partnerships, collaboration and The Good Growth Plan we are committed to improving farm productivity, rescuing land from degradation, enhancing biodiversity and revitalizing rural communities. To learn more visit www.syngenta.com and www.goodgrowthplan.com. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Syngenta and www.twitter.com/SyngentaUS. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This document contains forward-looking statements, which can be identified by terminology such as expect, would, will, potential, plans, prospects, estimated, aiming, on track and similar expressions. Such statements may be subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from these statements. For Syngenta, such risks and uncertainties include risks relating to legal proceedings, regulatory approvals, new product development, increasing competition, customer credit risk, general economic and market conditions, compliance and remediation, intellectual property rights, implementation of organizational changes, impairment of intangible assets, consumer perceptions of genetically modified crops and organisms or crop protection chemicals, climatic variations, fluctuations in exchange rates and/or commodity prices, single source supply arrangements, political uncertainty, natural disasters, and breaches of data security or other disruptions of information technology. Syngenta assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions or other factors. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190414005077/en/