Agrobiotech in a World Running Out of Water
Image Source: Rod Long
By Rose Joyce
We’re running out of water, and fast. With the Earth warming and the world population expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, our freshwater resources are rapidly diminishing and already proving insufficient in terms of meeting demand. Water shortages are becoming the new normal, and in a world that uses over 10 billion tons of freshwater per day, apathy just isn’t an option. However, there is a growing solution to combating this crisis: agricultural biotechnology, a way to alter plants and organisms as a means of maximizing their efficiency and sustainability.
Historically, government regulation has been considered a fast track way to combat climate change. Some may remember the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, an agreement in which 196 parties at the United Nations Climate Change Conference agreed to limit global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius. And yet, despite unanimous agreement amongst world leaders to combat climate change, current global climate policies have us on track towards global warming of over 2.7 degrees Celsius. Seeing inadequate efforts towards combating climate change puts into question whether the best route really is government regulation, or if it is perhaps better to encourage individual industries to enact their own change. However, not all sectors are built the same, and with agriculture specifically, pollutant output can’t be easily minimized. Instead, it must be maximized to sustain the population. As an essential industry, agriculture production will need to expand by approximately 70% by 2050 in order to meet the needs of the world’s growing population.
And while the agriculture industry needs to expand in order to sustain future population projections, the threat of climate change-induced drought is acting as a barrier to growth. Just this past summer, Europe faced its worst drought in over 500 years, with the European and Global Drought Observatories (EDO and GDO) reporting production declines of 16% for grain maize, 15% for soybeans and 12% for sunflowers compared to the past five year average.
But this drought isn’t just isolated to Europe, it's a worldwide issue. The Midwest supplies America with most of the nation’s food, with an agricultural output accounting for 75% of its beef and 70% of its nuts, fruits and vegetables. Yet, due to continuous drought, many farmers are being left with no other choice but to sell their livestock or walk away from production as a means of cutting down on losses. In an economy already suffering from inflation and the on-going supply chain crisis, low production rates in the agricultural sector will only further drive up food costs, hurting the pockets of Americans all across the country.
Earth is often dubbed the “Blue Planet,” inflating misconceptions over how much water our planet actually has available—only around 1 percent of the water on earth is actually suitable as drinking water. And out of this 1 percent, over 70 percent of freshwater is used for agriculture. Given this data, it’s not surprising that drought’s impact on agriculture has been one of the most tangible and hard-hitting consequences of climate change thus far, as the sector sustains 82 percent of all drought impact.
Thus, given the increasing threat of droughts, it is simply not feasible for the agricultural industry to maintain its current production rates, much less expand them as according to future global projections. Therefore, we must use science and technology to retrofit the agricultural sector and minimize water consumption per unit of crop or livestock. Startups focusing on agricultural biotechnology are working towards this solution, making plants more resilient to maximize production whilst simultaneously minimizing cost. Improving plant durability through agricultural biotechnology, while complex, provides a complete structural improvement to farming, not only by helping plants better retain water but also through the potential of expanding agricultural access in already dry climates.
One of these startups working to combat drought is Elicit Plant, a French company whose product BEST-A Soybean Maize is a natural phytosterol (an organic compound in plants that acts to regulate cell membranes and also plant development) spray that combats plant water stress. The product essentially reduces evapotranspiration (how water moves into the atmosphere through both evaporation and transpiration) by partially closing the stomata, which opens in high temperatures, losing water vapor to the atmosphere. The technology has proved successful, increasing crop yield by 10 to 22 percent, and its potential is rapidly being capitalized upon. After raising 16 million euros in February, and obtaining a license to market products in Brazil and Ukraine in April, the company signed a deal with Phyteurop Industries (a French agricultural manufacturer) in September to rapidly increase its production.
The development of this product in France is especially relevant given the current economic and political climate in Europe. In an economy still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the current Ukraine-Russia war has made things worse for the continent. The conflict has exacerbated inflation, especially because both countries are major grain producers, with Russia providing 7.8 percent and Ukraine with 11.3 percent of global cereal production. The harsh effects of the war, combined with droughts—which have been no doubt exacerbated by climate change—have greatly increased the need for autonomous and drought-protected grain production in Europe. Conveniently, Elicit Plant specifically focuses on optimizing grain production, creating the potential to alleviate the setbacks and supply-chain disruptions of the war
Startups with the potential to automate the agricultural industry through agricultural biotechnology have been popping up around the world. For example, Puna Bio is an Argentinian company that has devoted 20 years towards studying the biology of extremophiles (microorganisms that live in extreme environments) in order to create a liquid treatment for crop seeds, helping them better withstand changes in heat and water during early growing stages. While the company’s product has seen increased crop yields of 10 to 15 percent, its potential for expansion is limited by the difficulty in collecting extremophiles, which (as the name suggests), are located in isolated, difficult to reach climates. Despite this, the market for Puna Bio’s treatment is expanding, and is currently being tested in the U.S.
As the climate crisis continues to worsen, the need for such intelligent agricultural solutions like these aforementioned startups is rapidly increasing. In a world where government regulation is slow moving and not comprehensive enough to induce rapid change, industry-based solutions are our next path forward. Right now, the biotechnological solutions that companies like Elicit Plant and Puna Bio provide are clear pathways to both expand the agricultural industry into drier climates, and sustain crops during intense drought. And in the next few years, the scale of implementation of these products will determine if we can sustain a growing population in an increasingly hostile environment.
Rose Joyce is a sophomore at New York University from Massachusetts, studying economics and public policy. She is passionate about coffee, and the very broad topic of how governments legislate infrastructure. In her free time you can find her at Le Fournil (home of arguably the best pastries and coffee in all of Manhattan).
