The human population is continuously growing, more food has to be produced to feed the world. Fungal pathogens (moulds) are one of the key causes of food waste along the supply chain. The key strength of fungal pathogens is linked to their fast adaptation to treatments and the broad variety of fungal species that can infect a given species of plant. These factors make it challenging to develop efficient broad-spectrum fungicides with high efficacy and no harmful impact on the environment and health.
A global fungicide market report, Markets and Markets 2020, indicates that in 2019 the fungicide market was estimated to have a value of USD 18.3 BN and the market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.6%, to reach a value of USD 24 BN by 2025. The growing demand for fungicides can be explained by increasing agricultural activities and the demand for high-quality agricultural produce. Today, the fungicide market is basically divided between four companies: BASF SE (Germany), ChemChina (China), Corteva, Inc. (US) and Bayer AG (Germany).
As a consequence, most of these companies mainly focus on the development of highly effective synthetic fungicides that can be applied throughout plant growth. However, an increasing pressure from the public and from governments to ban the use of chemical pesticides that might harm human health and biodiversity started during the last decade. These pressures are contributing to the development of novel sustainable treatments. Alternatives, existing on the market, are biological (identified and extracted from living organisms) fungicides that leave no residues on food and have no negative impact on the environment and safeguard human well-being. However, the development of biological fungicides is still in its nascency and will requires additional research to create fungicides that are not only environmentally friendly, but also effective and efficient (i.e. avoiding multiple product re-applications). Based, on the global natural fungicide market report from Mordor Intelligence, 2020, the market of biological fungicides was valued at USD 1.28 BN in 2018 and is expected to reach a value of USD 2.9 BN by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 15.6% during the forecast period.
All the above-mentioned facts create significant opportunities for new biological fungicides, that should be as effective as currently available synthetic products, while lacking harmful residues on top of the crops and staying affordable for food producers. Based on current available data, AgroSustain’s products will fulfill environmental-friendly criteria and hence will have an interesting future in the large fungicide market.
In the present project, we aimed at developing environmentally friendly fungicides from a biological (identified from the living organism and extracted from them) or natural (identified from the living organism but large scale production done by chemical synthesis) origin that are in line with a sustainable agriculture. In more details, we focused on:
- The upscaling, formulation and field testing of a first natural fungicide of AgroSustain, i.e. a combination of glucosinolate derivatives, that are produce by plants of the cabbage family (Brassicaceae);
- The development of a plant-based coating forming an invisible amorph barrier on the surface of the crops protecting them from fungal pathogen;
- The screening and development of biological fungicides from extracts of marine organisms, including their upscaling and formulation.
