Switch Bioworks, a US biotechnology startup, has received approval from Brazil's National Technical Biosafety Commission to run field trials of its nitrogen-fixing microbes in the country, the company announced on 30 September. It is preparing a new funding round to support commercialisation, AgNavigator reports.
Founded in 2022 by Stanford graduate Tim Schnabel, the company has engineered a microbial powder that colonises the area around a plant's roots. A genetic switch then turns on nitrogen production at the point the crop needs it, typically after about six weeks.
The company aims to replace 25 to 50 per cent of the synthetic nitrogen market and plans to move into other nutrients such as phosphorus, its chief financial officer Kaitlyn Qin said. Switch already has US regulatory approval and is doing research in Kenya.
Brazil is a natural first market, Qin said: demand for biological crop inputs is strong, and double cropping allows faster trials. Brazilian farmers also depend on imported fertiliser but use less nitrogen than US farmers; citing Statista data, AgNavigator puts US nitrogen use at 12.224 million tonnes in 2024 against Brazil's 6.291 million. Replacing about 40 pounds of synthetic nitrogen per acre could therefore mean a 40 to 50 per cent cut in Brazil, Qin said.
"Brazil is a global powerhouse in agricultural biologicals, with world-class research, commercial scale and strong farmer adoption," Schnabel said in a press release.
Qin said the company has a path to profitability and does not expect to need repeated large funding rounds because its business is not capital-heavy. She added that the world needs more fertiliser that does not depend on swings in fossil fuel prices.
Photo: USDA NRCS / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: AgNavigator
Comments
(0)