The biostimulants market is poised to grow in coming years as farmers come to realize their value, but that pales in comparison with what can be achieved through strong regulation. By David Eddy | Editor, American Fruit Grower & Western Fruit Grower
Amy Plato Roberts will never forget her initial visit a few years ago with a bureaucrat at USDA. She was beginning to speak when the official interrupted her with a question: “What – you want to be regulated?”
The answer was yes. Roberts, the Chair of the Biological Products Industry Alliance’s (BPIA) Board of Directors, chuckled at the memory. But she’s dead serious when it comes to appropriate regulation of the biostimulant industry, which she, along with many others in the industry, believes could pave the way for an even higher rate of growth than the currently predicted 12%.
Regulating the industry would mean testing, helping weed out bad actors. But more important, Roberts, Director of Regulatory Affairs – Americas, Lallemand Plant Care, says companies would be freer to talk about their products, and they wouldn’t be subject to the myriad labels mandated by the various states in the U.S.
In addition, farmers would get more access to a wider range of products, and the bureaucrats working in the various statehouses charged with having to regulate biostimulants would get some guidance.
“It’s a win for us, but it’s also a win for farmers, and it’s a win for regulators,” Roberts says.
Roberts says she has been working on the effort to regulate the industry for more than five years, but remains optimistic as there are a lot of efforts going on at both the state and federal level. A group from BPIA will be meeting with USDA in August to further the effort, which is really badly needed from a regulatory standpoint, she says.
As much as industry members complain about the current system, the states, especially the small ones, really have it bad. “The states are equally frustrated,” she says. “Some little states don’t have a lot of staff, and they have to look at hundreds of products.”
Roberts says that it’s currently difficult to get one label for various states. For example, it’s not unusual for the same product to have one label for Minnesota, another for California, and still another for Florida.
With regulation comes definition, and that will be a huge boon to not only the industry, but to the farmers. As it stands, that definition doesn’t exist, says Dave Lanciault, CEO of Tenfold Holdings (an agtech investment company) and co-Chair of the Biostimulant Council, who will participate in the USDA meeting in August.
“As a company, or industry, you want to be able to go out and talk specifically about what your technology does and how that benefits growers,” Lanciault says. “Without a clear legal definition —along with clarity of what claims you can make — you’re going to have inhibitions in the marketplace.”
Of course, that means growers won’t have access to full knowledge of the technology. Lanciault sees that as a disservice to growers who have shown their willingness to try new technology, as they’re recently demonstrated to some degree with precision agriculture.
“Farmers want to use tech,” he says, “but we can’t make plant biostimulant claims until we get that legal definition.”
Because most biostimulants are currently regulated as fertilizers, soil amendments or plant inoculants companies are limited to making claims consistent with those categories, Terry Stone, Corteva, Global Regulatory Leader, Biologicals, and a BPIA board member, says.
Unfortunately, some companies have made very ambitious claims with limited supporting data.
“That’s what the industry is trying to move away from,” he says. “We want to increase the credibility for everybody involved, educating growers on how to use them and appreciate the benefits they can provide – and that takes time.”
Stone says such ambitious claims neither support the overall industry nor provide growers with accurate information on how best to use the product and benefits they can expect. “What we’re trying to get across is ‘This is what the product is actually doing to support improved nutrient uptake, utilization, or abiotic stress tolerance, which can consequently lead to improved growth and yield.
The biostimulant/fertilizer industry is growing at about 12% to 14% a year, and is expected to reach $4 billion in 2024, Lanciault says. But he believes the segment is still in early days. “In my view, we are at maybe 5% to 10% penetration of the addressable market for plant biostimulants. I think industry should be focused on what we can do to grow it to $40 billion.”
The problem is that companies are competing for the same grower dollars because the number of grower-customers isn’t increasing nearly as fast as it would if the industry were regulated and well-defined.
“It makes no sense at all for companies to beat each other’s brains in to compete over this small acreage,” he says. “We should be growing the market instead.”
Stone says Corteva established a biological product business unit, in 2019, and sees its role as providers of proven technologies. “Our focus is on proving the effect, understanding what the farmer can count on under what conditions and assess how to have that value best express itself in various geographies, crops and production systems. For that reason, we operate with a completely open innovation model and assess hundreds of technologies every year coming from start-ups, incubators, universities as well as more established biological companies. Our goal with that approach is not only to be able to pick the best solutions available, but then to put our full development and commercialization capabilities behind those products we select. We see biologicals as not only expanding our offering to growers, but as a way to extend the efficacy of traditional crop inputs and provide greater flexibility in crop management while also meeting changing consumer expectations. Bottom line, it's about embracing balance so farms continue to be productive and healthy today and tomorrow,” he says.
Roberts points to the entrance of such large companies as Corteva and Bayer, noting not only the growth of industry, but its desirability, which extends to large and small companies alike.
“The fertilizer companies are getting involved too,” she says. “It wasn’t long ago this was just a niche.”
Dr. Trevor Suslow, the food safety expert for American Fruit Grower and Western Fruit Grower magazines, recently wrote a column that has created a bit of a buzz in the biologicals industry. Titled “A Wake-Up Call for Growers on Biostimulants and Biofertilizers,” the column deals with the issue of pathogen contamination.
Suslow, an Emeritus Extension Research Specialist faculty member at the University of California, Davis, states that he is not pointing the finger at either industry suppliers or growers, but it is an emerging problem that warrants attention.
Industry experts reacting to Suslow’s column, such as David Lanciault, CEO of Tenfold Holdings (an agtech investment company), agree that the concern is legitimate, as everyone should be employing good food safety practices.
“The risk suggested by Trevor Suslow is real,” he says, “but it’s exaggerated people have been putting seaweed out for 400 years. Unless he has data showing it’s a serious problem, I think the perception of risk is overestimated.”
Biological companies certainly don’t want to introduce anything in the food chain that can contaminate food, Lanciault says, noting the industry has come a long way since the old days when products like molasses were recommended as soil amendments. Molasses is like candy for microbes but won’t discriminate between good and pathogenic organisms.
Companies today have safety standards in place, and are continually testing, Lanciault says.
“With our products, for example, every batch is subjected to stringent quality control for foodborne pathogens. And we don’t do that in-house,” he says. “We use independent, food quality labs to make sure everything is OK.”
The market will weed out any companies that don’t do quality control, he says.
“You’re not going to be around in this business very long if your products aren’t scrutinized,” Lanciault says. “Of all the companies I’ve seen and worked with, there is a common mindset that we need appropriate high and consistent standards, especially for food safety.”
Terry Stone, Global Regulatory Leader, Biologicals, Corteva, agrees that the industry takes such issues very seriously, and that all companies developing microbial products should employ quality assurance practices that identify contaminants in their products.
“Most if not all companies perform checks for the presence of microbial pathogens, heavy metals or other contaminants in their microbial biostimulant or biofertilizer products before they are distributed for sale,” he says.
However, Stone says that while biostimulant and biofertilizer companies can check for contaminants in the microbial products, it is also the responsibility of applicators to ensure the water used for tank mixing and application is free of pathogens. He adds that the use of untreated surface water for tank mixes with formulations support pathogen growth should be prohibited.
In essence, food safety is everybody’s business, he says.
Amy Plato Roberts, the Chair of the Biological Products Industry Alliance’s Board of Directors, says she’s never been involved in any food recalls related to biological products, and would like to see any data Suslow has. Nonetheless, she says he raises a legitimate concern, as nobody wants to see a food safety problem. In fact, it’s one of the many reasons industry members want regulation.
“This is the type of thing the industry work group is trying to pull together and address, because the consistency doesn’t exist,” she says. “It’s part of what the industry wants to see, we need standards on ingredients and composition under a regulatory framework.”
