Syngenta x Gingko Bioworks and Lavie Bio x ICL
Two noteworthy industry collaborations have recently made announcements regarding biologicals.
The first is from Syngenta and Ginkgo Bioworks. These companies are collaborating to launch a new biological product.
“Biologicals are increasingly important in addressing the need for efficient and sustainable agricultural solutions worldwide. At Syngenta, we are committed to providing farmers with greater complementary product and technology choices that promote sustainable agricultural practices,” said Camilla Corsi, global head of research at Syngenta Crop Protection. “We are excited to work with Ginkgo, and are confident that their distinctive capabilities will enable us to achieve our productivity goals for our targeted molecule, expediting our time to market.”
Ginkgo will be leveraging its biological knowledge and machine learning approaches to develop and optimize a microbial strain that can meet the productivity targets of a secondary metabolite from the Syngenta Biologicals pipeline. The companies say Ginkgo’s work in developing the strain will significantly expedite Syngenta’s go-to-market timeline for its latest biological solution.
“We are so excited to expand our relationship with Syngenta. We’ve built a successful relationship from our work together on plant traits and now look forward to doing the same with ag biologicals,” said Magalie Guilhabert, head of ag biologicals at Ginkgo Bioworks. Ginkgo is proud to put our excellent assets and experience against some of our customer’s toughest challenges. We’ll work to achieve productivity levels to realize commercial viability for Syngenta’s innovative ag biologicals product launch.”
Another partnership, Lavie Bio and ICL, has reached a new milestone in their collaboration. These brands have been developing yield-increasing biostimulants using AI, and recently identified more than a dozen novel microbial candidates believed to have commercial viability as biostimulants for crops grown under extreme weather conditions.
The companies say this process typically takes several years but was reached in under 12 months due to Lavie Bio’s technology platform. Their goal is for these biostimulants to increase yield by 5% to 10%, on average.
“We are very proud of the collaborations’ significant progress, which was achieved by leveraging artificial intelligence to drive rapid advancements in our research,” said Amit Noam, CEO of Lavie Bio. “Using ICL’s deep agricultural expertise has been essential in focusing Lavie Bio’s discovery efforts and has enabled us to advance to field trials in multiple target geographies quickly. Our team did a remarkable job of pushing our discovery process and platform to new heights, continuously improving computational accuracy and reducing both the time and cost to market for our novel products.”
Field trials on the potential biostimulants will take place in the second half of 2024, with results anticipated by year-end.
Cool Farm Tool Integrates with Cropwise Sustainability App
Syngenta has also announced the integration of their Cool Farm Tool (CFT) with Cropwise Sustainability app (CWS).
CFT is a carbon quantification tool that helps growers measure estimated greenhouse gas emissions on their farms. It can now be paired with CWS for custom recommendations on how to reduce an operation’s environmental footprint.
“The on-farm GHG calculator has been designed to empower growers,” said Richard Profit, CEO of the Cool Farm Alliance, which owns CFT. “It gives growers vital metrics to communicate about sustainability, show benefits of regenerative practices, carbon sequestration, and to report against reduction targets.”
Syngenta shares CWS was also designed with vital safeguards and data protection in mind.
“We developed the application understanding that data privacy was paramount to growers, agribusinesses, and us, as partners in the sustainability journey,” said Jeff Lail, senior data analyst for Digital Ag Solutions at Syngenta. “Growers can be confident that their data is secure and only shared when and where they allow it.”
The CWS application is free for users to download and begin making sustainable progress today.
Biome Makers Launches BeCrop Farm Tool
Another tool hitting the marketplace is Biome Maker’s BeCrop Farm Tool, which is centered around biologicals.
The company says the digital platform was designed to answer the “Now What?” question growers may have. It provides science-backed recommendations and actionable insights to help maximize each acre’s potential.
Among the features include:
- Recommendations for biological inputs.
- Hi-definition maps pinpointing areas needing attention at the field level.
- Agronomic insights that take biological analysis and create guidance around management practices.
- Field-level reports summarizing key metrics and identifying areas for improvement.
