Glacier FarmMedia – When it comes to technology, potential often outweighs practical, at least until an opportunity is created for the latter.
At the Ontario Agriculture Conference earlier this year, a presentation on the promise of biologicals acknowledged their potential but called for continued verification. Although there are many products on the horizon, further research is needed to confirm their benefits.
Why it matters: The challenges faced by producers, including resistant weeds and less access to chemicals, are driving innovation in biologicals.
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Biologicals, which include nitrogen-fixing bacteria, phosphorus-solubilizing microbes and mycorrhizal fungi, represent a new frontier. Companies are building lines with existing synthetic products as a springboard into the market.
Growth in the sector for 2022 was expected to be 50 per cent, says Darren Anderson, chief executive officer of Vive Crop Protection. Innovation in the past 20 years has been about software, equipment and analytics, but the next two decades will be about biology and life sciences, and systems to deal with threats on the farm.
Given the amount of capital investment, there’s little doubt of its impact, he says. What used to be a 10-year, $100 million path to research, development and launch is now 13 years, and triple the amount for synthetics.
“There are some challenges for biologicals, like scale-up, because they’re made in a similar way to brewing beer. The same issues apply with creating biological products,” says Anderson.
“For biologicals, it’s more like five years and $5 to $20 million to get a product ready to go, depending on what it is.”
Less is more
Being more efficient is going to become increasingly important. Existing tools are being challenged by supply issues, but many of the products farmers rely on are undergoing greater regulatory scrutiny. Yet it’s not a matter of replacing existing products: supplementary development and combining biologicals with synthetics present a greater opportunity, says Anderson.
“Some companies are doing some interesting things on the synthetic discovery side. The breadth of tools in the soil, underneath a producer’s feet, is incredible with respect to what those microbes can do. It’s just a question of getting the science right and getting the path to market right.”
A company that’s part of this new horizon is A&L Biologicals, a division of A&L Canada Laboratories. The company is active in the sector, with a microbial library that includes more than 4,000 isolates screened for functional traits, then further classified as potential bio-control or bio-fertilizer products.
Like Anderson, Rob Field believes biologicals represent a huge opportunity for development and discovery.
“The sector’s experiencing exponential growth,” says Field, vice-president of business development and marketing with A&L Biologicals. “Sustainability and technology are the drivers of growth alongside population growth and the need for more food.”
Field sees the interest from investors, and a resulting flow of capital funnelled into the sector, as positive signs. What’s needed is accuracy, not hype, about the potential for biologicals.
“There’s a perception that biologicals are not as effective as conventional synthetic products,” he says, noting that perception is inaccurate and must be overcome with technology and industry promotion.
“Biological solutions are safer than synthetic solutions, which provide a quicker path to registration. Issues like fungicide resistance provide opportunities for investment in biological solutions.”
For more reporting on this issue, see Ralph Pearce’s work in Country Guide.
Newly released
Stratus Ag Research recently released an extensive 60-page survey titled Tracking Biostimulant Use and Satisfaction. More than 1,200 Canadian producers participated, with results contained on pages 31 to 60.
The survey tracked the use of beneficial bacteria/fungi, nitrogen-fixing biologicals, protein hydrosylates, organic acids and seaweed extracts and botanicals.
Among the highlights: 23 per cent of respondents reported using one or more biostimulants last year, including 26 per cent in Western Canada and 18 per cent in the East. JumpStart, Envita and Utrisha-N had the highest use among growers.
In the use of biostimulants in 2022, 48 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the brand they selected, 11 per cent were dissatisfied and 42 per cent were unsure or gave a rating of three out of five.
Among users, N-fixing biologicals had the fewest satisfied users and the most dissatisfied users. Yet 31 per cent of growers who used a brand in 2022 are committed to using the same brand for the next two to three years.
– This article was originally published at the Manitoba Co-operator.
