Four years ago, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was born. This ground-breaking exercise brought together government, non-governmental organisations and industry representatives, including Syngenta, to assess world agriculture. Potential authors were nominated and selected - and I was among them. All the authors were expected to draw on their own experience and interpretations of the available evidence, including that taken from peer-reviewed literature, but to leave their affiliations behind. In other words, though employed by Syngenta I was there in an independent capacity.