“You ought to care about biologicals because it’s going to be a very significant segment — and already is,” Dr. Pam Marrone said during an online talk this week about biological crop products in agriculture.
According to Dr. Marrone, who is the cofounder and executive chair of Invasive Species Corporation as well as a biologicals pioneer, all three categories of biologicals — biopesticides, biostimulants, and biofertilizers — are growing rapidly. Citing Upstream Ag’s Shane Thomas, she added that they could equal chemical crop products in terms of growth in the next 20 years.
Reasons for this growth go beyond simply decarbonizing farming and fixing the soil.
“When you incorporate biologicals into a program with tools that the farmer already uses — they could be chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers or reductions of chemical fertilizers — the growers nearly always see a higher return on investment than with their chemical-only programs,” she said. “Not everybody believes this when I say this, but I’ve had data from decades of work and from my companies, as well as other companies showing the increased ROI.”
For many growers, however, a major challenge is sifting through the “mind-boggling” number of biologicals products out there to discover those that actually work.
During the webinar, which was hosted by soil health startup Chonex, Dr. Marrone outlined some of the key questions growers should be asking of manufacturers and their products.
Number one, she said, is asking what field data the company has. While a small, standalone demo plot “can be useful,” it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story about a product’s effectiveness, she said. It’s also important to ask how many fields are involved, the win rate of products over time, and whether there’s not just yield increase but also return on investment.
“I’m hearing more from leading farmers that just getting a yield increase is not where you want to be,” she said. “You want to have a return on investment. You can get yield increases and spend a lot of money on that, but it’s really about the ROI.”
It’s also about nutrient density and quality of crops, rather than simply focusing on yield, as conventional agriculture has historically done. More farmers, particularly those working in the regenerative agriculture space, are interested in data showing the differences in nutrient density and protein percentage between conventional and regen, she added.
Meanwhile, what is the science behind the product? This has to be clearly articulated, said Marrone. It definitely can’t just be “proprietary.”
“I hear a lot of companies say, ‘Well, it’s proprietary. Unless we have an NDA, I’m not going to tell you what’s going on.’ And I’m like, No, you’re not going to say that to a farmer. The farmer has to know the science behind the products.”
Educating farmers still a massive opportunity
Farmers still don’t fully understand biologicals, according to stats from multiple surveys shown during the talk. Citing an AgWeb survey, Dr. Marrone explained that nearly half 41% of farmers said they needed to know more before using biologicals, while 35% merely said they “see potential.”
“[There is] a huge opportunity here for biological companies and practitioners and agronomists who are advising farmers to really educate here, because every single survey shows the exact same thing,” Dr. Marrone noted.
For the past five years, she added, the percentage of farmers who say they are not educated about biologicals has hovered around 50%.
“That lack of knowledge comes up over and over again, so we have this education to do to improve the uptake of biologicals,” she said, adding that once growers learn how to use these products, they frequently rate them highly.
“It behooves all the practitioners and and manufacturers in having that education and learning so growers don’t just see a snake oil category. It’s a big opportunity, but also big challenge .”
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Author Jennifer Marston
