The Oxford University spin-out, formed in 2017, is using both chemical and natural active ingredients in its herbicide development efforts.
Its innovations come as governments and regulatory bodies around the world are introducing stricter rules on chemical pesticide usage, promoting more sustainable agricultural practices.
Consumers and farmers, meanwhile, are becoming more conscious of the environmental and health impacts of conventional chemical pesticides.
Is there a danger of an overreach in the promotion of biologicals and the defenestration of chemicals?
Take the example of Paris, which in 2019 joined four other French cities in implementing a ban on the use of synthetic pesticides, including herbicides. While some visitors might admire the new biodiversity on offer, others might balk at the presence of just so many weeds in the City of Light.
The problem, according to Moa, is that bioherbicides simply don’t work. “What we’re hearing from farmers is they want a whole range of options,” says Alexandra Ranson, Moa’s head of corporate affairs, in conversation with AgTechNavigator at the recent World Agri-Tech Summit in London.
“They want mechanical options; they want biological; they want synthetic. They want options because we know that relying too heavily on only one single answer does not lead to great outcomes.”
The global challenge of herbicide-resistance weeds
Over 270 weed species have, for example, developed resistance to at least one herbicide mode of action. Biological herbicides, meanwhile, are struggling in terms of efficacy, affordability and scalability.
Let’s not forget, adds Ranson: not all biological compounds are safe either. There’s an assumption that everything biological is going to be safe and natural. That’s not necessarily the case. “Strychnine is a natural product”, points out Moa’s chief technology officer, Dr Shuji Hachisu.
Farmers and city councils therefore need all options on the table. Illustrating the current lack of options are the failed attempts by the European Union to ban glyphosate. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency concluded in 2015 that the herbicide was probably carcinogenic to humans. But amid much protest, last year Brussels allowed its use across the EU for 10 more years after member states failed to reach a deal.
According to Ranson that’s because EU lawmakers heard “very clearly” from farmers that they cannot continue producing crops at their current levels if they cannot use chemical herbicides. “There isn’t yet anything that can take their place.”
Ultimately, she shrugs, politicians must feed people. So until a replacement is found for it, glyphosate is sticking around for the foreseeable (tellingly, it is now 50 years since it was first brought to market under the brand name Roundup in 1974).
Moa has developed a proprietary biological platform to discover a whole new generation of synthetic and bio-herbicidal compounds based on novel modes of action, to provide farmers around the world with safe, cost-effective, technologically advanced solutions at a pace weeds cannot match.
In the last three years, Moa’s platform has screened over 750,000 compounds and found about 70 promising novel modes of action areas, with multiple candidates already in field trials after successfully completing laboratory validation and glasshouse testing. Considering only one novel mode of action has been commercialised in the last 40 years, the company’s efforts so far are “extraordinary,” Ranson believes.
The monster compounds of the deep
As an agnostic company, Moa screens both synthetic and natural compounds and extracts. Many of the latter come from “all sorts of weird and wonderful places”, explains Hachisu. For example, in collaboration with chemicals company Croda, Moa has exclusive access to a large library of marine compounds from the ocean biome, from which it is searching for potential bio-herbicides.
The marine biome is “massively undiscovered”, Ranson says. “About 95% of species are not identified yet. So there’s the thought that perhaps there are things that have evolved in completely different ways under the sea that might kill weeds above them.”
Developing a new herbicide is, however, notoriously costly, complex and lengthy. It typically takes over a decade to bring a new product to market. The company has its feet firmly on the ground, therefore. “Weeds are incredibly clever and incredibly good at resistance,” explains Ranson.
Consequently, the new herbicides that ‘big ag’ has launched over the last 40 years have typically been variants reformulations of existing modes of actions. “From big ag’s perspective you can understand why they’ve gone down that route of trying to improve what they’ve already got rather than finding something new,” Ranson says. It’s cheaper and quicker after all to keep tweaking the formula.
She is optimistic, however, that demand for new ways to tackle weeds will force the hand of big ag to embrace riskier innovation. “We think that over time big companies with distribution and manufacturing will want to license our products and distribute them.”
Hachisu adds that farmers and other users are simply “running out” of herbicides. If you come up with something that works, chemical or otherwise, “they will take it”.
