Project description
A human urine-based solution for safe biofertilisers
The EU consumes approximately 18 million tonnes of mineral fertilisers annually, posing a risk to our food security. Yet, these fertilisers remain crucial for sustaining the world’s population. Human urine, containing vital nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, is often treated as waste and poses a threat to water sources when disposed of inappropriately. The EU-funded Toopi-Regen project seeks to use human urine to develop safe, efficient, and economically viable microbial biostimulants. This model promotes regenerative agriculture, enhances nutrient utilisation efficiency, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. As a closed-loop solution, it can be implemented locally and is highly replicable. The project aims to implement this model across Europe, fostering a significant shift in the fertiliser market.
Objective
How can we revolutionize our food system while preserving a vital resource?
18 million tons of mineral fertilizers are used every year in the EU. This massive use threatens our food security, health and environment, but remains essential for feeding humankind. Farmers have no viable alternatives. At the same time, human urine - rich in essential nutrients, N, P, K - is not only considered as a waste, but keep threatening our water sources when flushed in drinking water (6,000B L per year in the EU).
At Toopi Organics, we aim to implement a sustainable and profitable agricultural model based on up-cycling human urine. Our unique and patented fermentation process produces microbial biostimulants using urine as a growth medium for microorganisms of agricultural interest as alternative to crop fertilization. Our urine-based products are approved across Europe, safe, easy-to-use, effective (proven in many field trials) and economically viable. They are fully adapted to scale regenerative agriculture by enhancing nutrients use efficiency, increasing soil microbiome biodiversity and avoiding the huge fertilisers greenhouse gas emissions. Our closed-loop solution is implemented at a local scale and is highly replicable: urine collection (in urban areas) and urine transformation in fermentation facilities are localized close to farmers needs.
With the EIC support, we will deploy our model in Europe and promote a significant paradigm shift in the fertilisation market. The global biostimulants market is worth 3.4B (CAGR of 11%). It remains a niche market - with products dedicated mainly to value added crops and not really affordable for field crop growers. Our ambition is to become a leader of the biostimulant market category dedicated to substitute a significant proportion of mineral fertilisers (global market worth 230B by 2030), while increasing farmers profit margin.
Together, we will make a true closed-loop regenerative farming system a reality for Europe
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiology
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybioprocessing technologiesfermentation
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-EIC-ACC-BF - HORIZON EIC Accelerator Blended FinanceCoordinator
33190 LOUPIAC-DE-LA-REOLE
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.