The growth of biological products in agriculture
Dr Thomas Williams and Holly Meadows-Smith of BioConsortia look at the rise of biopesticides and biostimulants
Agricultural production must double by 2050 , by which time the global population will have reached 9 billion and will still be battling climate volatility and reducing the environmental impact of farming . Biologicals are central to this discussion and are now being spotlighted by the likes of Bayer and BASF . At the same time , new players continue to innovate rapidly in the space .
Outside the industry
By offering alternative , biological solutions to growers , the agricultural industry will be able to maintain adequate food production levels while reducing its environmental impact . The stigma that biologicals cannot prove as effective as synthetic agrochemicals is slowly being dismantled , as the industry sees ever growing investment into the space , and more and more growers are seeing results . Microbials have held a spot in the industry ’ s limelight for many years now . More recently , this interest has expanded out into the public , due to a wider conversation around climate change and an urgent need for answers . Media attention on the potential benefits to be found in the trillions of organisms living in the soil has been helpful in spurring further research into identifying agriculturally useful microbes . Thanks to this earlier burst of interest in microbial effects on human nutrition , the public was primed to understand the
Fungal root colonisation
Microbes forming a consortium extrapolation into plant health . The benefits of the microbiome work in similar ways in both humans and plants , aiding in the digestion of nutrients , affecting the expression of certain traits and manipulating metabolite expression . Additionally , as research into the human microbiome advanced , so did the accompanying technologies . Microbiome analysis , metagenomics and transcriptomics used to study gut bacteria all also
48 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981