On Tuesday morning, Catalera BioSolutions announced the close of its Series A funding round. S2G Ventures, a venture capital firm in Chicago, has invested US$8 million in Catalera.

FCC Capital, a newly created investment arm of Farm Credit Canada, has also put money into Catalera.

“FCC is thrilled to announce our first co-investment in Catalera BioSolutions alongside S2G, which has a decade of experience investing in the global food and agtech space,” FCC president Justine Hendricks said in a Sept. 10 news release.

“This transaction aligns with FCC’s commitment to build a capital solutions platform which delivers impactful financing for innovative companies with the potential to advance the Canadian food and agriculture industry.”

Catalera is a new entity in the world of biologicals, a generic term to describe crop protection and fertility products that are derived from bacteria, fungi, plant extracts and other natural organisms.

Terramera, an ag tech company in Vancouver, spun off part of its operations to create Catalera in May.

The new firm has several bio-pesticides already on the market in the United States and Mexico.

Those products include Socoro, a fungicide, insecticide and miticide for use on cereal crops, soybeans, cotton and other row crops in America.

“Our team has been developing safe, effective and cost-competitive biological products for over a decade. We have launched numerous products with leading partners and have an exciting pipeline of new products in development, which this new funding will help us get to market,” said Matthew Dahabieh, chief executive officer of Catalera.

Those products include a microbial bio-insecticide, which is expected to hit the market in 2026 and a combination bio-insecticide, which will be commercialized in 2025.

On its website, Catalera claims that synthetic chemistry has hit a wall in agriculture.

“Synthetics can take us no further. Biologicals are the future,” Catalera says.

“With no residual chemicals, biologicals overcome pesticide resistance and enable responsible pest control… Cost-effective and efficacious biological products satisfy growing demand from industry, regulators, and consumers.”

Some ag industry leaders would agree with that stance as they believe biologicals could replace chemistry in crop protection.

Others are more cautious, arguing that bio-stimulants, bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides will have a role in agriculture, but it will likely be in combination with traditional chemistry.

“We have to measure our expectations on what these things can do, and not compare them to some of these herbicides or fungicides,” said Ryan Bonnet, Canadian commercial lead for biologicals at Corteva AgriScience.

“A herbicide or fungicide, they go out and kill a pest. They kill a weed or they kill a disease. … These products (biologicals) do something a little bit different.”

Speaking at this summer’s Ag In Motion farm show near Langham, Sask., Bonnett gave an example of what biological products can do.

If there was a light frost in the spring, a bio-stimulant could trigger the growth of the crop.

“There are (biostimulant) products you can use directly after that weather event to kick-start that crop’s growth stage,” he said.

“We want to tell the crop, no, no, no. It was just cold for a day. Let’s kick-start your photosynthetic ability. Let’s kick-start your normal hormonal processes.”

Whether they replace or complement synthetic chemistry, it’s likely that biologicals will soon play a much larger role on Canadian farms.

Major and minor crop science companies are investing billions into biological products. In 2022, for instance, Corteva Agriscience spent $1.2 billion to acquire Stoller, a biologicals firm from Texas.

Catalera, the new company from Vancouver, holds more than 200 patents and will launch new products over the next few years.

Now, there are about 1,200 biological products in the agricultural market and that number is guaranteed to increase.

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The company that is primarily known for retailing agricultural chemicals direct to its farmer-members plans to branch out into providing various other crop inputs, such as farm lending products.

“That’s something we do in the U.S. that we don’t do in Canada,” FBN’s general manager of Canada, Breen Neeser, said during an interview at the Ag in Motion farm show.

It is also exploring the idea of offering risk management tools to its Canadian farmer members.

“Insurance is something we’ve toyed with, and it is another possible platform we’re thinking seriously on,” he said.

The company intends to start providing livestock inputs, including both pharmaceutical and feed products to Canadian producers. And it is starting to dabble in the seed sector as well, utilizing its breeding facility in La Salle, Manitoba where it has been developing traits for many years.

“We feel that we’re very close to having canola seed commercially available,” said Neeser.

All the new platforms he mentioned should be available in Canada in the next year or two once they have been properly engineered for the company’s online store.

FBN’s chief executive officer Diego Casanello made the trip to Langham, Sask., to speak to members attending the AIM show. He told Canadian growers they can expect to see FBN start offering a program that will help them certify their grains as low carbon intensity feedstocks for the biofuel industry.

“We paid already more than (US)$45 million of premiums to our (U.S.) farmer members,” he said.

It is the biggest biofuel feedstock certification platform in the U.S. with more than 10,000 members.

“We’re bringing this to Canada next year,” he said.

Casanello said FBN has strength in numbers with 85,000 farmer members in the U.S. and Canada. “It’s a massive bargaining power that collectively we have to go and sit down with suppliers and get the best possible deal, the best possible price for you,” he said.

The company is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Neeser said FBN has not lost focus on its main business despite all the new platforms it will be introducing in the next couple of years. One of the main thrusts in the crop protection side of the business is to continue expanding its cereal crop portfolio. For instance, it hopes to have Pinoxaden available in time for its fall cybersale.

“It’s a very popular product in Western Canada and one that we haven’t had access to in the past,” he said.

FBN also intends to have a number of granular herbicides in its lineup including Treflan, Avadex, Fortress and Edge.

“We will have access to all four of those products for fall on our FBN label,” he said.

Neeser said crop protection products from the late-1980s, the 1990s and early-2000s are experiencing a renaissance with growers because they can combat some of the resistance issues that modern chemistries are less effective at controlling. Growers are finding it a cost-effective way of managing problematic weeds like Kochia.

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Rise in carrying cost of stock for distributors driven by higher interest rates and improved product availability have taken a toll on demand for crop protection products such as herbicide and insecticide.

Peer FMC Corp, which had cut its annual revenue outlook in June, said on Thursday it expects global crop protection market to contract by high single to low double digits during the year.

Corteva said it expects net sales between $17.9 billion and $18.2 billion for 2023, below its previous sales forecast of $18.6 billion to $18.9 billion.

The company, spun off in 2019 after a merger of Dow Chemical and Dupont, said its net sales during the second quarter fell 3% to $6.05 billion as it saw a 29% decrease in volume in its crop protection segment.

However, Corteva’s net sales from its seed business rose 8% from a year ago, aided by strong prices and increased corn acres in North America that helped offset volume declines driven by Europe, the Middle East and Asia as well as its Russia-exit.

Its operating core profit came in at $1.60 per share in the quarter ended June 30 compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.58.

Shares of the company were down 0.8% in extended trading.

–Reporting by Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru.

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Among several other changes, a planned new package of federal regulatory amendments will put a gradual end to a “pause” imposed in August 2021 on such proposed MRL increases, which are overseen by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced the planned amendments Tuesday, in what are billed as Canada’s “next steps toward a sustainable approach to pesticides management, while giving farmers the tools they need to keep providing reliable access to safe and nutritious food.”

The term “MRL” refers to the highest legally allowed amount of pesticide residue that may remain on or in food when a pesticide is used according to label directions. Different MRLs are set for different combinations of chemicals and foods, depending on how a pesticide is applied for a given crop.

Ottawa’s 2021 pause had been imposed in response to public concerns specifically regarding a boost to MRLs for glyphosate herbicide, as was proposed in May that year for certain imported commodities.

That proposal, Bibeau said Wednesday in an interview, was meant to have brought Canada’s glyphosate MRLs in line with revisions laid out by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the body which oversees standards for foods traded internationally.

But for some, she said, the concept of MRLs is “really counter-intuitive, so it’s hard to explain to the public. When you say, ‘You know, we might be increasing that,’ the first reaction is that ‘Oh my God, we will increase pesticides on our cereal,’ which is not the case, which is not how it works, but intuitively, it was not well received.”

Bibeau said the government felt at the time that a pause, to better understand the existing process, was necessary, because PMRA was “functioning under a law that is quite old.”

Health Canada said Tuesday it’s “still reviewing the significant feedback from the public” in response to the proposed increase to MRLs for glyphosate, with the last comments received in April 2022.

Bibeau said the re-evaluation process for glyphosate MRLs won’t resume before 2024, while the pause on evaluations for other, “less complex” MRL proposals will be lifted more quickly.

For glyphosate, key studies on the matter are currently underway in the European Union and elsewhere, Bibeau said, and Canada wants to have access to that information before making its decision.

READ MORE: Canadian grain is safe: Chorney

Otherwise, Health Canada said Tuesday, “lifting the pause is important to allow people in Canada to maintain a reliable access to affordable and nutritious food, provide predictability for farmers to access the required tools to fight against new pests, and facilitate trade, which is central to support food security.”

Health Canada emphasized Tuesday that an MRL will only be increased if the department’s scientists determine it’s safe to do so.

Transparency

Ottawa’s proposed new regulatory amendments stem in part from consultations conducted last year during a “targeted review” of the federal Pest Control Products Act (PCPA).

Health Canada said Tuesday it found that “opening up the PCPA wasn’t necessary, as policy and regulatory initiatives are sufficient to achieve the goals” of the department’s agenda for the PMRA.

To that end, Health Canada on Tuesday filed a notice of intent for proposed amendments to the federal Pest Control Products Regulations, opening up a 60-day public comment period.

The amendments, as proposed, would aim to “increase transparency” for MRL applications for imported food products, and to “facilitate access” by the public to confidential test data (CTD) used in such decision-making, such as for research and re-analysis.

Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Canada said, anyone wanting access to CTD would have to travel in person to Ottawa and apply for access to PMRA’s physical “reading room,” in which a person could review CTD under supervision and could only take notes, subject to PMRA also taking photocopies of those notes.

The government has to acknowledge that the public has an increased interest in these sorts of decisions, Bibeau said Wednesday, adding such methods of disclosure were “not really transparent.” Since the pandemic, access to inspect CTD has been granted remotely, using an encrypted USB key.

The amendments proposed Tuesday would further provide access to CTD “in a manner that would allow an individual to conduct their own data analysis” but while “maintaining the appropriate levels of protection against unfair commercial use of the data” as required by international treaties.

New regulations proposed in Health Canada’s notice of intent would also grant a federal health minister the “explicit authority to require submission of available information on cumulative environmental effects” of a pesticide, and require the minister to consider cumulative effects on the environment during risk assessments. They would also authorize the minister to require any available information on species-at-risk to be submitted during pesticide risk assessments.

Bibeau on Tuesday noted the federal government in 2021 put up $50 million for pest management research, both by PMRA and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, with support from Environment Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

That funding would go toward “independent” data-gathering on pesticide safety by PMRA, as well as research into alternative pest control products by AAFC, she said.

Cosmetic curb

The moves Ottawa announced Tuesday also stem in part from international commitments reached in Montreal last year during the Conference of Parties (COP15) on biological diversity, as per the participating countries’ adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

Specifically, Bibeau said Wednesday, Target 7 of the GBF calls for reducing the overall risk from pesticides to biodiversity by at least half by 2030 — and by that, she emphasized, “I want to insist, the risk, not the use” of pesticides.

Target 7 calls for reducing risk by 50 per cent means such as “integrated pest management, based on science, taking into account food security and livelihoods.”

To that end, Ottawa on Tuesday also announced what Bibeau described as a more “concrete” federal move — namely, a new ban on “cosmetic” or otherwise nonessential use of pesticides on federal lands, such as national parks and around federal buildings, except where needed to protect lands against a harmful infestation.

All that said, Bibeau emphasized Wednesday, “there is absolutely no change” directly affecting pesticide use by farmers in any of the new regulatory proposals announced Tuesday.

“Pesticides are part of the toolbox agricultural producers use to protect their crops from pests and contribute to their productivity,” she said in the government’s release Tuesday. “The measures announced by our government today help to ensure responsible access, framed by reliable data, to these essential inputs, while protecting health and the environment.”

It’s given, she said Wednesday, that when it comes to pesticide use, farmers are trained professionals who are concerned for the environment, incorporate integrated pest management practices and limit their crop chem use to what’s agronomically necessary.

Canada, Bibeau said, has always advocated for trade rules based on science and will lead by example.

“If we are asking other countries, our trading partners, to do trade based on science, we will keep making decisions based on science, but we have to provide more transparency to the public, and cut the risk where it’s not essential, like for cosmetic use.”

‘Conflicting messages’

But the organization representing Canada’s crop protection companies says the government’s proposals miss the mark.

CropLife Canada, in a separate statement, hailed Bibeau’s “strong statements in support of the importance of pesticides in food production and the need for these important tools to help bolster food security in Canada and around the world.”

However, CropLife said, the government plans to “only slowly begin to increase MRLs again where required, despite acknowledging that MRLs do not pose a safety concern and that they are critical to international trade and food security.”

The government’s new plan to ban cosmetic use of pesticides on federal lands also “runs in direct contradiction to its own risk-based approach to pesticide regulation,” CropLife said, noting PMRA “thoroughly assesses all pesticides” for safety.

“For Health Canada to deem pesticides safe and then turn around and ban them for so-called cosmetic purposes on their own lands sends conflicting messages to Canadians.”

Canada Grains Council president Erin Gowriluk, in a separate release, also hailed Bibeau’s recognition of the importance of pesticides to food production and security and of “the connection between crop protection and environmental sustainability.”

However, she said, by persisting with the “pause” on certain MRL approvals, “there is an increasing risk of Canada’s trading partners perceiving it as an intrusion of ideology into policymaking, contradicting our message to other countries.”

That, combined with the ban on cosmetic pesticide use on federal lands, has “the potential to undermine the government’s explicit recognition that pesticide uses in Canada undergo rigorous testing and assessment to ensure they are safe and pose no unacceptable risks to human health or the environment,” the council said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Corteva Agriscience said Wednesday it had signed a “definitive agreement” to buy Houston-based Stoller in an all-cash acquisition worth US$1.2 billion (C$1.61 billion), which it expects to close in the first half of the new year.

Stoller, whose Canadian operations are based out of Regina, makes and sells crop protection and nutrition products such as X-Cyte, a plant growth hormone meant to help protect plants against heat blast; Fortified Stimulate, another plant growth regulator combining X-Cyte’s active ingredient with three other hormones; and plant nutrient combinations billed as “growth-enhancing co-factors” under brands such as Bio-Forge, Action, X-Tra Power and Sugar Mover.

Stoller, Corteva noted Wednesday, has operations and sales in over 60 countries and its revenues for full-year 2022 are forecasted to come in above US$400 million.

“Biologicals provide farmers with sustainably-advantaged tools that complement crop protection technologies, and collectively, can work to address global challenges around food security and climate change,” Corteva CEO Chuck Magro said in that company’s release.

Corteva said it forecasts the biologicals market to grow by “high-single digits” each year through 2035, which by then would put that segment’s share of the overall crop protection market at around 25 per cent.

Corteva said it’s developed a “world-class” biologicals business in the past three years through not only acquisitions and licensing and distribution deals, but also through “external and internal innovation” and R+D collaborations.

Corteva in September also announced a deal to buy Spanish microbiologicals firm Symborg for an undisclosed amount. Those two companies had already collaborated on the recent launches of two biostimulant products, Utrisha N and BlueN.

Stoller, Magro said Wednesday, “represents a leader in the biologicals industry given its commercial presence and market expansion potential, while also delivering attractive growth and operating margins.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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In the first phase, it will buy 50 per cent of Shanghai Dibai Plant Protection, a wholly owned subsidiary of Huifeng focused on the sale of formulated crop protection products in China. This phase of the deal is expected to close in the coming weeks.

In the second phase Adama will buy a 51 per cent equity stake in Jiangsu Kelinong, a newly established, wholly owned subsidiary of Huifeng, to which Huifeng will transfer its key crop protection synthesis and formulation facilities. It will also buy another one per cent in Dibai.

Following these transactions, Adama will hold 51 per cent of both Kelinong and Dibai, providing it with a majority stake in one of China’s top crop protection manufacturers, Adama said.

Closing of the second phase is subject to full resumption of production at the relevant facilities of Huifeng, which is in the process of rectifying environmental issues and obtaining approvals to resume production.

“Through this acquisition, we continue to accelerate our growth strategy both in the Chinese market as well as globally,” Adama CEO Ignacio Dominguez said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tova Cohen.

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The new feature works for fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and growth regulators to help growers create special management zones within each field, and assign product rates to each region while following label directions.

Why it matters: Technology like this gives farmers the opportunity to micromanage their fields and help to save money on placing crop protection products only where needed.

Marvin Talsma, product marketing manager with Climate FieldView says they have had requests for a program that can create zones for crop protection products.

“We have prescription created for seeding and fertilizer programs available through the FieldView platform. We’ve had requests from our peers that there are instances where they would like to do something similar for their crop protection products.”

The tool was released near the end of June and is available for any growers with a FieldView Plus subscription.

Growers can use the program to select a field boundary in FieldView and create a manual prescription.

“When I say ‘manual’, that farmer can pull in layers that are in FieldView, choose one of those maps and use that as a basis and start creating zones, assign whether or not it is a fungicide, herbicide, or a growth regulator product and they can then assign different rates to those zones.”

Once the prescription is created, it is downloaded, put onto a USB key and taken to the sprayer. As well, the application can be mapped in Climate FieldView to compare with the prescription.

A feature like this works well on diseases such as white mould in soybeans, a disease that thrives in areas of a field with more biomass. With the program the grower is able to take an NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) image breaking down the biomass into five regions.

“I will take the low areas, the low biomass, and create a zone and decide not to apply a fungicide because I’m not going to need that protection, I’m not going to get a whole lot out of it,” says Talsma.

The fungicide can be focussed on the areas that will be in need and are at higher risk.

Talsma said another frequent request was for pre-harvest applications to assist with crop dry down.

“Areas in the field will dry down more quickly than others. If we use a desiccant in that field, we can identify those areas that are a little slower and maybe put a higher rate of desiccant on and a lower rate across the rest of the field, or vice versa.”

The program works much the same with herbicides, especially once wheat is harvested.

“If we had a spot of wheat that was drowned out, it didn’t grow, it didn’t survive, but we have a patch of thistles or weeds there, those should show up in our imagery. We can create a prescription and apply a herbicide to target those weedy areas.”

Information on where best to make zones for crop protection products can come from numerous resources.

“Yield maps have a huge potential in showing us their productivity in fields. We generally have higher productive areas, our crop is going to grow a little better. But also, if you think about an insect like aphids in soybeans, they are attracted to low potassium soil or low potash availability in the soil. So if we have a soil map and an aphid outbreak, we want to target those areas to ensure we kill the aphids, but not the beneficials,” says Talsma.

“I think we have the opportunity to be creative and think about how we use it to help our farmers manage more site specific and that’ll help them keep a little bit more dollars in their pocket.”

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The Prairie retailers, who in 2010 set up Grow Community of Independents to collectively build up their retail and agronomic offerings, are now independent members of a new entity, dubbed WinField United Canada.

Launched Monday in Saskatoon, WinField United Canada will be the Canadian arm of WinField United, formed last year through a merger of WinField, the crop inputs business of Minnesota ag co-operative Land O’Lakes, with Iowa-based crop input firm United Suppliers.

The Grow Community’s dealerships in 2015 linked up with United Suppliers to form what was subsequently known as United Suppliers Canada, which has now adopted the WinField United Canada name.

The new organization will supply its member/owner retailers with seed, crop protection products and fertilizers along with “market-leading technology tools and customized business and agronomic advice at a local level.”

“Our goal is to support our retail owners in providing their farm customers with customized crop solutions that help promote efficiency and greater return on investment in every single facet of modern farming,” Greg McDonald, the former manager of the Grow Community and now general manager for WinField United Canada, said in a release.

WinField United Canada also plans to launch an owner advisory board, “so we can present opportunities and connect what Land O’Lakes has to offer,” McDonald said in a Land O’Lakes newsletter. “They can help decide what initiatives they believe will be a fit for their businesses.”

WinField United Canada, he said, now partners with about 60 independent retail companies, which between them have “north of 150” outlets.

The new Canadian organization will also now manage WinField United’s existing business in Eastern Canada, where it already markets seed to growers under the Croplan brand and offers “other proprietary products.”

For its part, Land O’Lakes said this arrangement gives the U.S. co-operative access to the Prairies, which it described as “the country’s largest crop production market.”

The WinField United Canada team’s member retailers together have about six per cent of Prairie ag input retail market share and 16 per cent of the total independent (that is, non-chain) market, Land O’Lakes noted.

McDonald, in an interview, said the independents show a “resilience” through waves of acquisitions, in which even some of the company’s own member retailers have been snapped up by line companies or larger chains.

In areas where one retailer is bought out, he said, an independent often starts up or an existing independent expands its catchment into that region. Farmers, who are generally independent businessmen themselves, and independent retailers “really resonate” with each other.

The WinField United model, he said, is more of a “from the ground up” approach, in which the organization takes its cues from its member retailers, as opposed to a “top-down” model in which a retailer follows a parent firm’s policies.

It’s important that its member retailers retain the power to make their own business decisions, he said, and “there’s no official alignment where they’re forced to do anything.

“If they need to bring on some product that best fits southern Saskatchewan, or southern Alberta, or the Red River Valley,” they can do so, whether it comes through the WinField United supply chain or not.

Asked whether member retailers are concerned about future consolidation — for example, the planned merger of PotashCorp with Agrium, owner of the Crop Production Services chain — McDonald said he believes independents will continue to be successful, as they “continue to deliver… and because of that, they will continue to be attractive businesses (for other companies) to buy.”

Speaking in WinField’s release, Brent Manning of GJ Chemical at Arnaud, Man., said his company “look(s) forward to working together” with WinField “to raise the bar in providing our customers with leading-edge service, emerging science and proven technology.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Philadelphia-based FMC will focus on increasing sales of crop chemicals developed internally, and avoid big acquisitions for a few years, after it closes a deal this year to swap its health and nutrition business for part of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.’s crop protection business, Brondeau said in an interview.

The deal, announced in late March, would vault FMC to the world’s No. 5 pesticide maker by sales from eighth-largest in a market where abundant grain production has softened crop prices.

The swap will bring to FMC 15 crop chemicals that DuPont has in development, adding to nine in FMC’s pipeline.

“My objective is we need to be… from an organic growth standpoint, the fastest-growing company in the industry,” Brondeau said. “We believe we can grow today, even if we are at the bottom of the (agriculture) cycle.”

FMC will target mid- to high single-digit annual revenue growth starting in 2018, Brondeau said.

Smaller producers, such as Nufarm and Sumitomo Corp.’s crop chemical business, might need to combine, Brondeau said.

“The big five are going to be so strong that some of these smaller companies are going to have to join forces,” he said.

Demand for crop chemicals has dropped in North America and Europe this year, but is climbing in Asia and Latin America, Brondeau said.

FMC shares hit a nearly three-year high in April following the DuPont deal.

While FMC aims for growth, a proposed U.S. border tax would be “really bad” for the industry, since production of certain chemical ingredients cannot easily move from other countries.

“Somebody is going to have to pay for it,” he said. “It would be U.S. farmers.”

FMC also produces lithium, a commodity in demand for use in electric vehicles.

The company will decide next year how to separate the lithium business, likely by initial public offering or spinoff. Selling it to a single buyer “is a very long shot,” as it would incur high taxes, Brondeau said.

FMC plans to decide by 2018 whether to roughly double lithium carbonate equivalent production in Argentina. Brondeau said there is “very high probability that it will be a go.”

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent covering the agriculture and mining sectors for Reuters from Winnipeg.

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“We are generally interested in strengthening our business further, acquisitions are part of that, that is very much part of our thinking. But it takes two to tango,” CEO Kurt Bock told journalists on a call after the release of quarterly results on Thursday.

He added deals were even more difficult when a third party in the form of an antitrust regulator posed additional hurdles.

With rivals including Monsanto and Bayer joining forces all around, BASF has been eyeing a surprise foray into generic pesticides and cast an eye on U.S. pesticides peer FMC Corp., sources told Reuters on March 22.

FMC in late March snatched up crop protection businesses put up for sale by DuPont to win European Union approval for its merger with Dow Chemical. These assets had been regarded by analysts as a good fit for BASF.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ludwig Burger.

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