Bioprime AgriSolutions to launch products to cut synthetic fertilizers requirement by half
Pune-based Bioprime AgriSolutions Pvt Ltd, which has launched 8 products to make crops climate resilient, plans to launch nutrient-efficient products that will cut the plan’s synthetic fertilizer requirements by 50 per cent. It also plans to innovate the largest factory in India containing all the microbes available within the country.
Renuka Dewan, co-founder of the company said, “This will help reduce damage to the soil, impact on the environment and cost of inputs to farmers. It will reduce the carbon footprint of the food we produce.”
inherent challenges
The company, which launched in 2016, aims to make plants utilize, absorb and use nutrients at least 20 percent more than the current 30 percent. There are microbes that break down the complexes and make sure that the nutrients can be absorbed by the plant. But there are inherent challenges with microbes since you can’t mix them with fertilizer, otherwise they will die,” said the company’s co-founder. Business line in online interaction.
Renuka Dewan, co-founder of Bioprime, along with co-founders Amit Shinder (right) and Shekhar Bhosal.
Microbes must be present in the soil when compost is applied, but their use and the survival of the microorganisms are challenging.
Currently, the company is working on it with different universities. “With a 25 percent and 50 percent reduction in fertilizer, we can get the same amount of yield or a slightly better crop without compromising the health of the plant,” Diwan said.
An increase in yield
The company, which works with 11.5 farmers across the country, has followed up on big experiments with companies like ITC, where fertilizers were cut by 35 percent as farmers were reluctant to cut use so much. “Farmers were able to increase yields by 10 percent. The product will be launched within two and a half months,” Diwan said, adding that all products can be applied through drip irrigation or coated over granules such as bentonite granules or clay granules.
Bioprime has conducted studies on the nutrients of tomatoes, sugarcane, soybeans, rice, cotton and wheat with universities. “We’re doing some studies in agricultural crops like tea and coffee. We’re doing quite a bit of validation on the ground. We’ll introduce them after June,” she said.
Bioprime has applied to register these products and is awaiting approval. By the time clearance comes around, the company — which is in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka — expects to complete its pilot projects.
Expansion plans
“We started working in Odisha with government support. We will start this soon,” she said.
On the company’s expansion plans, Dewan said that it will first set foot in Southeast Asia where the climate is similar to India. “We are in the process of conducting regulatory trials of our products in the US and exploring the African market. We are planning to take the products overseas,” Diwan said.
Bioprime — which has three baskets of products that can make crops stress-resistant, climate-resilient and reduces fertilizer requirements — is building India’s largest plant associated with its microbial library. “we We have 15,000 microbes already in our cat across 300 locations across India In conditions such as hot water spray, sulfur spray, glaciers, deserts and forests. So we identify microbes and understand what their function or contribution is in terms of ensuring the survival and fitness of crops.
Holistic approach
The company’s scientists studied the past 35 years of climate, crop and soil data. This helps it bring in microbes from biodiversity hotspots such as the Western Ghats, northeastern region and the Himalayas.
“Plants and soil are collected in a specific way so the microbes are not destroyed. They are sent to the lab as quickly as possible. Once they are in the lab, they are subjected to approximately 80 different treatments and pre-treatments so that as many microbes as possible can be obtained from the plant and soil.
“We have some (microbe-based) products in the pipeline that we will be commercializing soon. We are also looking into microbes that can fix nitrogen as well as sequester carbon. We are looking at a holistic approach to producing food in a sustainable way,” said the company’s co-founder.
“Our goal is to provide relief to farmers suffering from crop loss, temperature fluctuations, drought, insects and resilient diseases,” said Diwan, whose company prefers to work with farmers, seed companies and value chains to understand problems.
El Nino experience
Interestingly, the company was launched in El Nino – 2016 – when the founders noticed high temperature fluctuations in the nearby tomato growing belt, one of the largest in Asia at Narayangaon near Nashik. “Because of the high temperature, the farmers lost almost 96 percent of the crops, and that was our starting point. We asked the farmers why they did not use this or that and their response was that they had not heard of such things.”
The founders of Bioprime then began researching the products available on the market and found to their surprise that the popular research work had not been turned into products. “That was the moment for us. We said that’s exactly where we want to be. So, we wrote a proposal to DoBT and got proof of concept funding where we said it was based on a plant communication system,” Diwan said.
plant communication
It is a system in which a plant recognizes conditions such as stress, disease attack, and pest attack and communicates within itself and with neighboring plants the type of situation it is in. The situation can be to use those stimulating molecules. We can identify these trigger molecules and use them as formulas to make crops climate resilient. “We’ve secured DoBT funding and that’s how we got started,” said Bioprime co-founder.
Diwan explained the concept that, for example, if a leaf is eaten by livestock or insects, it needs to send a communication through their entire system that it is being eaten, so that the plant can defend itself. “This is like a chain of communication and it’s very subtle. These are tiny biomolecules and the combination of these biomolecules is actually accurate at communicating whether the plant is recovering, feeling hot, lacking water, under attack by fungus or being eaten,” she says. As the co-founder of Bioprime said.
The connection goes out to neighboring plants, too. It was the premise for which the Department of Commerce and Industry funded. Since then, the company has moved forward and created hypothesis-driven products. “The products have worked well and are well received by the farmers,” she said. What the company actually does is that on the farm not all of the crop is lost. Picks up the plant that survived and the plant that didn’t by looking at other plants in the vicinity.
corporate relations
“For example, crops may find it very difficult, but herbs thrive in the same environment and the same soil. We compare this by layering data on top of each other and seeing what is different or similar. This makes us understand the processes the plant uses to overcome these conditions,” Diwan said. “This is how we discovered molecules.”
Bioprime, which has ties to four companies and is in talks about two more, has come up with formulations that use these molecules. “Like overcoming drought we have one molecule. There are 4-5 different processes plants have to go through before they can become drought tolerant or heat tolerant. So a combination of these molecules is required to treat a single condition. In this way we built a library of 10,000 signal molecule.
According to Diwan, the company’s products ensure that there is a guarantee on the yield for the farmer even in the worst conditions so that farming is no longer a gamble.