Focus: Farmers test microbes to nourish crops as climate pressure grows, costs rise

Bayer Cropscience

03/02/2022 11:00

By Rod Nickel and Karl Plume
    Feb 3 (Reuters) - Tech companies are raising hundreds of
millions of dollars, including backing from agriculture
heavyweights like Bayer AG  BAYGn.DE , in developing farm
products that use living things like microbes and seaweed to
nourish crops and lessen the need for synthetic fertilizer. 
    Microbes, including fungi and viruses, have been available
for decades as treatments to protect plants from insects and
disease, with mixed results. But developers are increasingly
deploying them as natural ways to nurture crops while
maintaining crop production levels. 
    Such products could help farmers lessen applications of
nitrogen that can pollute waterways and generate nitrous oxide,
at a time when farm emissions face greater scrutiny. Canada
wants to cut fertilizer emissions by 2030, while the European
Union aims to reduce fertilizer usage.
    Tech companies are attracting funding as commercial nitrogen
and potash fertilizers are in tight supply https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertilizer-shortage-may-lead-spring-scramble-north-americas-farms-2021-11-24,
 inflating the costs of food production. 
    Investment bank Rabobank sees the $3 billion biostimulants
industry growing by 12%-15% annually over the next five years.
Global investments in crop biostimulant and control products
more than doubled in 2021 from the previous year, to $777
million, according to preliminary data from venture capital firm
AgFunder.
    But microbial fertilizers are largely unregulated, with few
studies on how effective they are at boosting crop yields. Only
a handful of U.S. states require companies to supply data on the
products' efficacy. The European Union will impose its first
efficacy requirement for biostimulants in July 2022, and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued draft guidance
for public review. 
    "Unfortunately, there is an element of buyer beware out
there," said Jon Treloar, agronomist at Denmark-based Novozymes
 NZYMb.CO , one of the biggest sellers of biological agriculture
products. One contains a fungus that grows alongside plant roots
and releases phosphate, a crop nutrient, from the soil.
    Unlike some companies, Novozymes shares field testing
results with farmers, Treloar said.
    "If growers have a bad experience, it can really tar the
entire industry."
    Still, Iowa farmer Jeff Taylor likes what he has seen from
biostimulants.
    Taylor applied a new product from startup Pivot Bio and a
reduced fertilizer application on a cornfield last year, while
applying a full rate of fertilizer on another field.
    He said the field with Pivot's product yielded slightly more
corn per acre.
    "I was skeptical that there was a biological product that
would help the crop," Taylor said. "This is one that I
personally feel is working for me."
    Pivot, a private company whose investors include oilseed
crusher Bunge Ltd  BG.N , launched commercial sales of their
microbial fertilizer in 2019 and says farmers use it on more
than 1 million acres. It raised $430 million last year https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/pivot-bio-startup-using-microbes-replace-synthetic-fertilizer-raises-430-mln-2021-07-19
 from DCVC and Singapore investment company Temasek.
    The microbes in Pivot's Proven 40 consume sugar found in the
roots of a corn, wheat or sorghum plant, producing an enzyme
that converts nitrogen found in the air to ammonia, a crop
nutrient.
    "Microbes that can fix nitrogen in the air into ammonia have
been the holy grail of agriculture for 100 years," said Pivot
CEO Karsten Temme.
    Pivot's products do not generate the high emissions
associated with manufacturing nitrogen fertilizer, nor the
nitrous oxide emissions created when synthetic fertilizer
degrades over time, Temme said.
    Joyn Bio, a joint venture of Bayer and biotech company
Ginkgo Bioworks, expects commercial sales of a microbial seed
treatment in three to four years, said CEO Mike Miille. Joyn
engineers microbes in its Boston lab that fix nitrogen from the
air and deliver it to corn plants in a form that they can use.
    Midwest field trials began last year of the treatment, which
aims to allow farmers to cut use of conventional fertilizer by
50% while maintaining yields. 
    
    FERTILIZER COMPANIES ON BOARD
    Privately held Locus Agricultural Solutions says its
microbial soil treatments help crops absorb more nutrients and
less water and captures and stores more climate-warming carbon
underground, generating carbon credits. The credits, generated
when carbon capture claims are verified, can be sold to buyers
looking to offset their emissions.
    The company, which sells its products in the United States
and is expanding into Europe, has seen revenues jump 50% or more
year over year, a growth rate that CEO Chad Pawlak says is
expected to continue for the next two to three years due to
soaring farm input costs.
    "When you see the double-digit percentage increases in
(fertilizer) costs, the conversation around microbes is changing
significantly," Pawlak said. "We're able to unlock some of those
nutrients that were bound up in the soil over the decades."
    Fertilizer and seed companies are getting onboard.
    Nutrien Ltd  NTR.TO  sells biostimulants in its farm supply
stores and Yara International  YAR.OL  produces biosimulants
based on seaweed and humic substances.
    Seed company Corteva  CTVA.N  is launching a biological
product this spring that it says captures nitrogen from the
atmosphere and converts it into ammonium, a fertilizer that
plants can use, a spokesperson said.
    Bayer's venture investment unit, Leaps by Bayer, has funded
microbe-focused startups Andes and Sound Agriculture.
    But not everyone is convinced biostimulants work. 
    University of Minnesota soil scientist Daniel Kaiser tested
Pivot's Proven product on six sites over the past two seasons
with less-than-optimal nitrogen fertilizer applications and only
one site showed an improved yield.
    "With a lot of these (biostimulant products) the scientific
principles are sound. But taking them from a concept to
something that will work in the field, that's where they tend to
fall apart," he said.
    Europe accounts for half the global market, according to the
European Biostimulants Industry Council. Farmers there initially
used them mainly for organic production and on high-value fruit
and vegetable crops, but now increasingly deploy them in
conventional crops in response to the European Union's drive to
make agricultural production more sustainable.
    Plants can also support crop growth. Acadian Plant Health
harvests seaweed from the Atlantic Ocean and uses extracts of
its active molecules in products to improve crop use of
nutrients.
    The global focus on curbing emissions and consumer attention
to how food is produced have given the biostimulant sector
momentum, said James Maude, Acadian's senior vice president.
    "It had bad connotations of being snake oil. (Now) it's like
the stars are aligned."
    

    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fertilizer shortage may lead to spring scramble on North
America's farms     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2S32JG
Pivot Bio, a startup using microbes to replace synthetic
fertilizer, raises $430 mln     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2OS27V
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
 (Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Karl Plume in Chicago;
additional reporting by Nigel Hunt in London; Editing by
Caroline Stauffer)
 ((rod.nickel@tr.com; Twitter: @RodNickel_Rtrs;
1-204-230-6043;))