Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BeCrop (SMART MICROBIOME-BASED PLATFORM FOR THE EARLY DETECTION OF BIOLOGICAL THREATS IN AGRICULTURE )
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-12-01 al 2021-12-31
Nowadays customers claim for safer and more sustainable products and reduce the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides carried out by farmers.
The main objectives of the BeCrop project is to create a smart microbiome-based platform for the detection of biological threats in agriculture prior to their apparition and to enable global sustainable farming. To achieve these, we have developed and put into the market the first Inteligence Computing System (ICS) based on Artificial Inteligence (AI), using DNA Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) techniques offering microbial functional data. BeCrop® directly assists farmers in taking tailored informed and intelligent decisions for their crops, by translating microbial data into the early detection of biological threats and nutritional potential (efficiency and/or unbalances) of their soils.
We considered the BeCrop® project to be successful in both, scientific and commercial levels. BeCrop® is on the market as a trusted and globally recognized all-in-one genetic soil assessment tool. Moreover, our integrations represent an exclusive toolkit that enables the comparison of results from multiple blocks in the BeCrop® Portal.
We have established an international commercial network and put in place a licensing system that allows our partners to perform the wet lab soil sample analysis and deliver the results of the BeCrop products analysis. We have formed commercial alliances with partners such as Agroestrategias, Disagro, Bayer, Perleuve, Pioneer Ecoscience, among others. This third-party companies are enabled to use our API to get the data in their own computing systems, visual platforms etc.
Main results achieved during the project are the following:
• Collection of 22.295 soil samples from 105 different crops in 44 different countries.
• 183 different agreements have been signed during project execution under the initiative Fields4Ever
• Integration in Global Soil Laboratory Network (GLOSOLAN – FAO) and the International Network on Soil Biodiversity (NETSOB)
• 7 specific impact topics on interest:
o Management practices
o Bio stimulants effects over crops
o Terroir and soil characterization
o Soil health status
o Diseases and soil pollution
o Carbon sequestration
o Increasing production
• Validation of the potential of commercial collaborations with agro-players like Bayer
• BeCrop® website and fields4ever initiative website.
• BeCrop® Brochure, demo report, report manual and an onboarding guide done
• Up to +50 publications across countries to promote BeCrop® technology
• 3 directly related scientific publications
• New IP family linked with the BeCrop® development
Thanks to the technology developed that integrates genomics, AI and AgData to identify the microbial biomarkers, BeCrop is currently the most advanced technology for functional soil analysis, combining DNA Sequencing and intelligent computing. It provides farmers and agronomists with Crop specific data-driven insights on what the soil really needs to be healthy for any crop and any soil.
The results from the BeCrop analysis are delivered as an easy-to-understand report with all the information necessary to make the best farming decisions.
Additionally, Biome Makers has built an exclusive toolkit to help to compare the results from multiple blocks on the BeCrop Portal. These include GIS map layers, microbial population tools, and other useful integrations.
Our dissemination and pre-commercialization efforts have allowed us to reach stakeholders from small farmers to industrial leaders in the agricultural products manufacturing sector like Bayer or Disagro and successfully built a base of over 2.000 clients so far.
The project impact on Biome Makers reputation and market positioning so far has allowed us to raise a 15M series B to accelerate the global expansion of BeCrop® as the industry standard for functional soil analysis and sustainable soil health recovery and it will continue through the expansion of our client base. Our focus now is to further strengthen existing impacts and further consolidate their usefulness and effectiveness.
We have demonstrated that based on BeCrop® assessment and associated recommendations we generate an environmental impact:
• Soil biodiversity increase
• Soil erosion prevention
• Soil recovery
• Chemical contamination in soil reduction
• Gas emission reduction
• Carbon sequestration
As well as a socio-economic impact:
• Pesticide reduction: 10 to 100% saving
• Fertilization reduction: 40 to 100% saving
• Bio stimulants price and sales increase
• Yield increase: 10-40%
• Crop commercialization:
• increase 30% the prize
• increase in 15 % in sales.
• Carbon credits