By: Maria Williams
Agriculture is a major industry in the United States, contributing roughly $1.530 trillion to their gross domestic product (GDP) – a 5.6-percent share. Agriculture also contributes significantly to climate change due to the overuse of petrochemical-derived synthetic agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers. With the United Nations Sustainable Goals (SDG) and the ongoing push for sustainable practices, it is now more critical than ever to take a close look at the current state of this industry. The demand for so-called ‘biologicals’ is surging, driven by environmental concerns and regulatory pressures. Biologicals are defined as plant protection products derived from living organisms. However, the path to a greener future is fraught with challenges, especially when it comes to integrating biologicals with synthetic chemicals, a reality that many farmers face.
The global agricultural landscape is undergoing a significant shift. The use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and yield-enhancing chemistry has long been criticized for its detrimental effects on biodiversity, soil health, water quality, and climate change. Modern agriculture has turned into what amounts to a downstream petrochemical industry. The need to displace petrochemicals to address climate change has pushed the global agricultural biologicals market size to an impressive USD 13.44 billion in 2023; the North American agricultural biologicals market itself has seen explosive growth, with estimates placing its market share at 31.62% in 2023. Despite this, the transition to biologicals is not without its hurdles. Modern petrochemical farming has been extremely successful at feeding the planet for the last 50 years. Now farmers are asked to feed more people, with less land and using less petrochemicals – a tall order.
At the recent 2024 Salinas Biological Summit, CXC™ CEO François Lamoureux’s presentation sparked a significant discussion by raising the following critical point that resonated with many attendees: “For biologicals to succeed, we need to get past the idea that ‘my seaweed is better than your seaweed’ and go all the way to finding out the deep science behind what is causing increased yield and good pathogen control.” This observation led to a deeper examination of the efficacy and challenges facing both biologicals and chemical standards in agricultural applications.
It then occurred to him: farmers don’t want to buy mysteries anymore.
The agricultural industry is in fact littered with examples of biologicals startups that have failed to deliver on their promises to farmers. Few renowned startups have raised significant capital, only to unfortunately falter spectacularly.
When interviewed, Mr. Lamoureux explained further, “Farmers don’t buy mysteries, they buy solutions. Farmers are not interested in an agricultural startup’s planned exit arrived at through ‘disruption.’ They don’t want to be disrupted but ‘helped’ as they help society find the way out of this climate change reality mess. They need to know how-and-why products work to be able to produce the food to feed us. Biologicals, for the most part, have failed in this respect, especially microbial-derived solutions. It-works-use-it is not enough anymore.”
The root of the problem for microbial derived solutions lies in the complexity of microbial-derived secondary metabolites – the very compounds that make microbial biologicals effective. It is a topic most do not want to discuss because the timeline to the complete understanding of these metabolites in a product is close to a decade. This timeline does not resonate with VC funded concerns which have a shorter exit strategy. Plus, we are in a climate mess today… How do we wait ten years?
CXC™ are experts in identifying and characterizing secondary metabolites from microbes, a mostly lost black art. CXC™ is not a startup but a biologicals discovery company focused on enabling the transition from petrochemical-derived agricultural solutions to microbial-derived biologicals solutions.
CXC™ is building upon the lineage of their partner, Dr. Donald L. Smith of McGill University, who fathered LCO biologicals technology, itself a secondary metabolite derived from a microbe. LCOs are arguably one the major hits in biologicals in the last decade. For the last 20+ years, Dr. Smith has been developing Abio™, along with CXC™, which licensed Abio™ from McGill. A microbial-derived signaling secondary metabolite, Abio™ is a next-generation LCO type of biostimulant. Like LCOs, there are no mysteries regarding why or how it works. In fact, Abio™ is synergistic to LCO technology, which points to increased yields for farmers when using both in tandem. Farmers specifically care about one metric over all others: more bushels per acre. Abio™ gets them there with no mystery.
As the agricultural industry continues to grapple with the challenge of sustainability, a company like CXC™ is leading the charge toward a more balanced and effective approach steeped in deep science, arrived at through 20+ years of work finding out why and how a specific biologicals solution works.
The harsh truth is that farmers are unlikely to abandon synthetic inputs entirely. But with solutions like Abio™ that work with synthetic inputs, farmers will be able to gradually transition to a more biologicals-centered way of farming, reducing greenhouse gasses, defeating climate change, and feeding our expanding world population.
Published by: Nelly Chavez
