Crop inputs

Gates Ag One discusses the tech solutions on its radar

Watch: Gates Ag One discusses the tech solutions on its radar

By Oliver Morrison

The innovation being eyed by Gates Foundation's agtech arm has potential to be deployed in richer nations, says Trey Key, its director of business development. But he warns that ag requires more time for technology integration compared to other sectors.

Image: US company Terviva transforms pongamia beans into food ingredients, animal feed and bioenergy. Image: Getty/Subas chandra Mahato

Plans to turn pongamia oil into biofuel move up a gear

By Oliver Morrison

Terviva, the company aiming to plant 200 million pongamia trees over 10 years for food, feed and fuel, has received investment from Chevron Renewable Energy Group, as mining giant Rio Tinto also looks to pongamia as a feedstock for renewable diesel production.

Image: Getty/ Scharvik

Innovation Insider: Country profile

Denmark: Outlier or pioneer?

By Harry Holmes

Will Denmark’s unprecedented carbon tax be replicated in other countries? Or is it simply another example of its unique willingness to challenge the status quo?

Image: Getty/pixelfusion3d

Innovation Insider Country profile

India: Are the bets back on?

By Harry Holmes

After the crisis in funding in 2023, India’s agtech landscape is adjusting. But can investment be directed to the right places? Harry Holmes investigates.

Shireen Davies, CEO co-founder, SOLASTA Bio. Image: Andrew Cawley

Green insecticide start-up raises $14m

By Oliver Morrison

SOLASTA Bio, based in Glasgow in the UK and with a base in North Carolina in the US, has completed a $14 million Series A funding round to accelerate the development of its peptide-based bioinsecticides.

Image: Getty/Natali_Mis

Will the new UK government embrace gene-edited food?

By Oliver Morrison

Plant scientists in the UK are demanding clarity from the new government to unlock the potential economic and environmental benefits of new precision breeding techniques such as gene editing.

Image: Getty/Igor Alecsander

Regen ag: Undefined and unable to feed the planet?

By Oliver Morrison

Yes, its broad principles offer a promising path towards sustainable nutrition and food security for the future. But without a standard definition regen ag risks becoming a soon-disregarded fad, it has been warned.

Purple bacteria are found in a variety of shallow environments such as estuaries, salt marshes and hypersaline salterns. Image: Getty/wallix

The next source of eco-friendly fertiliser: purple bacteria?

By Oliver Morrison

Biomass made from a species of purple bacteria typically found in marine sediments, seawater pools and mud flats is an ‘excellent nitrogen fertiliser’, according to research published in the journal Sustainable Agriculture.

Image: Getty/Zbynek Pospisil

Budding European agtech start-ups buoyant after Corteva partnership

By Oliver Morrison

A new tie-up between agritech giant Corteva Agriscience and Dutch accelerator StartLife, which supports start-ups in the food and agriculture sectors, aims to enable solutions through open innovation and speed the path to market breakthrough agrifood...

RNAi technology is targeting the Colorado potato beetle, a destructive pest of potato crops that is developing resistance to traditional chemical pesticides. Image: Getty/ Oleh Bilovus

RNAi for crop protection: how are the key challenges being addressed?

By Oliver Morrison

The study of RNAi in biology has been around for decades, but the use of RNAi for crop protection is relatively new. We caught up with Canada-based Renaissance BioScience Corp, which is developing novel yeast-based RNA interference (RNAi) technology for...

Image: Getty/We Are

Is private equity investment best placed to serve agtech?

By Oliver Morrison

It’s a question we put to Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Aqua Capital, a private equity firm investing in sustainable and innovative companies within the ag and food sectors, which has announced the final closing of its Ag & Food PE Fund III (Fund III).

Image: Getty/Richard Drury

VC investment

Agtech's ‘great reset’ continues, data reveals

By Oliver Morrison

PitchBook’s latest Q1 2024 Agtech Report indicates a market undergoing a correction, with the wheat being separated from the chaff. Some sectors are hotter than others, meanwhile.

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