Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the agriculture industry. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked startups developing sustainable agrochemicals.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights 5 Top Sustainable Agrochemicals developed by Startups out of 763
The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2.093.000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.
The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 763 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 AgriTech startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 758 startups developing sustainable agrochemicals, get in touch.
Click to download
Dharmaj makes Eco-friendly Agrochemicals
Most traditional agrochemicals pollute the soil and may even hurt crops. Moreover, the chemicals runoff to water bodies and pollute them too. This is why AgriTech startups are developing sustainable agrochemicals from organic and natural materials. These protect and nourish the crops while avoiding any damage to the environment.
Dharmaj is an Indian startup that offers eco-friendly agrochemicals. Fotocrop, the startup’s plant growth stimulator, is derived from soy protein by naturally available enzymes through hydrolysis. Padkar, a herbicide product, is water-based, and hence, is safe for the soil, crops, and the environment. The startup also produces eco-friendly insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides.
Donegal Seaweed produces Liquid Seaweed Fertilizers
Chemical fertilizers lead to water pollution, are responsible for acidification and mineral depletion in soil, and also cause chemical burns in crops. To address this problem, agritech startups are offering sustainable fertilizers. For example, liquid seaweed fertilizers are beneficial for plant nutrition. Moreover, seaweed contains alginate that holds water droplets near the roots. This allows the plants to have access to moisture without being drowned in water.
Irish startup Donegal Seaweed produces organic liquid seaweed fertilizers. It harvests the seaweed Ascophyllum Nodosum and uses its extracts to produce Ascboost and Garden Force, its fertilizer products. Ascoboost contains hormones like auxins, cytokinins, and betaines, besides magnesium, potassium, iron, and nitrogen. This leads to better yield in several fruits and vegetables. Garden Force seaweed extract contains important micronutrients that help seeds germinate more rapidly, have larger root mass, stronger plant growth, and higher survival rates.
Agrorim provides Green Pesticides
Conventional pesticides contain toxic chemicals that runoff to aquatic environments, where they pose a threat to aquatic life. Along with pests, pesticides also kill beneficial insects like pollinators and pest-eating predators. As a result, startups are turning to sustainable and precise insect repellents. Utilizing pheromones enables mechanisms like mass trapping and mating disruption that precisely target the unwanted insects.
Agrorim is an Israeli startup that provides green pesticide solutions. Its insect-repellent pesticide encapsulates active essential oils with natural ingredients that actively repel against the tomato leaf miner insect. The startup’s encapsulation platform improves the photochemical stability of the active ingredients, ensures slow-release, eliminates phytotoxic effects, and makes it effective for a longer period of time. Pheromat, Argorim’s pheromone-based product, traps pests like the olive fruit fly, jasmine moth, tomato leafminer moth, among others.
Lytos Tech develops a Biofungicide
Fungal diseases are very common in plants and if left untreated, leads to huge losses to farmers. This is why fungicides find wide applications in the agricultural industry. But conventional fungicides are toxic to a lot of organisms, especially aquatic life. To tackle this problem, agritech startups are offering organic fungicides or biofungicides as sustainable alternatives.
US-based startup Lytos Tech develops broad-based biofungicides. It utilizes synthetic biology and protein engineering to develop organic, enzymatic biofungicides that protect high-value agriculture crops. They also restore crop yields previously lost to fungal pathogens, increasing revenues for farmers. Besides, the products are safe for plants, pollinators, and farmers.
Benefert offers an Organic Biostimulant
Plants are often exposed to abiotic stress such as extreme heat or cold, hail, frost, deficient or excessive water, high salinity, and heavy metals. This hinders plant growth and, hence, adversely affects the yield. To improve yields, startups are developing a range of biostimulants. Made from organic materials, such solutions enable crop recovery while being safe for the environment.
Benefert is a Dutch startup that offers an organic biostimulant. BeneSTIM, the startup’s biostimulant product, consists of free amino acids, plant extracts, organic nitrogen, organic carbon, and fulvic acids. It stimulates the plants’ metabolism pathways and increases photosynthesis activity. This promotes the recovery of plants from abiotic stress like heat stress and water stress.
Discover more AgriTech Startups
AgriTech startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on soil remediation, biochar, and regenerative farming. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing the agricultural industry, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more agricultural technologies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download our free AgriTech Innovation Report to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.
