Provivi fight against maize fall armyworm in Bangladesh and India

Provivi, an emerging crop protection company using pheromones to protect large acreage row crops from major damaging insects, has announced a US$10mn investment by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This amount adds to Provivi's recently announced US$45.5mn C2 fundraising round.

This investment in Provivi aims to further advance the foundation’s charitable objective of developing new crop innovations designed to meet the needs of smallholder farmers. 

The funding will support the production and distribution of crop protectants to address insect pests that have a disproportionate impact on small-scale producers within developing countries. The programme will focus on several individual projects to develop and supply Provivi’s pheromone-based Mating Disruption products against Rice Stem Borer and Maize Fall Armyworm to small-scale farmers in Kenya, Bangladesh, and India.

Pedro Coelho, co-founder, and CEO of Provivi, said, “A core mission of Provivi is to ensure the availability of our products to those farmers in developing countries, who stand to benefit the most from being able to use our safe and reliable technology. With this collaboration, we will leverage the technology recently registered and commercialised in Mexico, Brazil, and Kenya. Our products will help improve the livelihoods of farmers, who will now get access to this technology, by helping them prevent damaging insect attacks and thereby improve their crops and securing the supply of their staple food without putting their health or the environment at risk.”

Ganesh Kishore, chairman of the board at Provivi, stated, “The joint projects will help accelerate a core objective of Provivi, namely improving lives of small-scale producers in developing countries by selectively addressing devastating pest problems offering safe and affordable protection of their crops.”

“We are especially encouraged to continue to fuel Provivi’s growth and boost our ability to work in developing countries. Agriculture is resilient, and farmers play an indispensable role in the global economy. We are excited to take the Provivi brand to new countries and to bring the benefits of pheromones to the grain crop farmers who feed the world,” Coelho concluded.