Plant biostimulants are used in crops ranging from high-end to row crops, AgriTecno is constantly optimizing its product pipeline for 2023

Editors’ note:

Growers and farmers are facing a series of challenges, such as the vulnerability of soil caused by the excessive use of conventional fertilizers, the reduction of available active ingredients for crop protection due to environmental and toxicity, the acceleration of climate change, and the increase in social demand for more sustainable crop production. In response to these challenges, agricultural technology and product innovation are gradually increasing. Plant biostimulants are a group of products that can arouse the strong interest of growers. AgriTecno Spain is one of the leading companies in the global biostimulant industry. It entered the Chinese market as early as 2013 and has achieved certain brand awareness and sales achievements. Vicente Rubio Balaguer, Subsidiaries Director of AgriTecno, expressed his views on AgriTecno's core competitiveness, strategies to expand the Chinese and European markets, the 2023 plan, and future product planning in the exchange with AgroPages.

Vicente Rubio Balaguer  
Subsidiaries Director of AgriTecno Spain

Q: Can you tell us about AgriTecno Spain and its core competencies?

We are specialists in plant biostimulants and stress management.

AgriTecno is an international company-based Spain, now part of Ajinomoto Group the company is becoming global, our products are available in more than 60 countries and our subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, ensures the access to our solutions all around the word.

Agritecno through the experience on product development and marketing makes available of the agriculture the Ajinomoto Amino science technology.

Q: Can you introduce AgriTecno core products and marketing strategies in the European and Chinese markets?

Society is demanding healthier food and a minimal foot print of the food production activities, world is fighting against climate change, Farmers answer is up to the challenge, developing farming practices minimizing the use of conventional chemicals, crop protection products and fertilizers, taking care on the soil trough minimum tillage technologies, optimal water management and not only reducing carbon emissions but also be part of the solution trough fixing carbon in to the soil thanks to the modern practices: Minimum tillage, Integrated Pest Management, , Precision agriculture and Organic Farming among others.

The demand is extraordinary, farmers must produce food in a very adverse climate environment, extremely heat, drought, episodes of heavy rain and cold, in this scenario of high demand, is where Biostimulants take a leading role:

"Plant biostimulants stimulate natural processes in plants to enhance nutrient uptake and efficiency, crop quality, and tolerance to abiotic stress, benefitting both plant yield and vigor. This ensures that plants have good baseline strength and health, making plants less vulnerable to stress, pests, and other threats, including climate shocks. Biostimulant products can help farmers adapt their agricultural systems to an increasingly volatile climate while enhancing food production sustainability, thereby contributing to a climate-smart farm model for the future, which is both resilient and flexible"

EBIC https://biostimulants.eu/issue/plant-biostimulants-contribute-to-climate-smart-agriculture/

Agritecno contribution range provide on contributive solutions in the critical farming challenges:

    Soil care and fertility.

    Fertilizers uptake and efficiency.

    Plant stress management.

    Healthy growth.

    Functional solutions, like rooting, growth, yield, and food quality.

Our brands Agriful, Fertigrain Foliar, Tecamin Max, Tecnockel, are today references on quality and cost-effective product-solutions for Chinese, European and worldwide farmers.

Our common strategy for China and Europe is to be very close to the farmer, our marketing organizations are in daily contact with users, that is critical to understand their needs provide them or right answers.

Q: What do you think is the main difference between the two markets?

The level of integration of the use of biostimulants in the cultivation practices of European farmers has over China the natural advantage of having started their habitual use a few years earlier, the dynamism of Chinese agriculture is incorporating the use of biostimulants to all Crop levels and types of agriculture, from small farms to large Agroholding, are incorporating biostimulants into their portfolio of solutions.

The regulatory development represented by the Fertilising Products Regulation (2019/1009), already in force since July 2022, is the measure of the importance that biostimulants have in European Agriculture.

″Fertilising Products Regulation (2019/1009) represents a huge step forward for plant biostimulants. For the first time, EU law recognises biostimulants, and there is a common definition across all the Member States. This is a huge step forward for both producers of biostimulants and the farmer who will gain access to a broader range of products.

In principle, any plant biostimulant that meets the demanding safety requirements of Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 should be able to placed on the Single Market as an ″EU Plant Biostimulant″. In practice this is not yet the case.″

EBIC https://biostimulants.eu/issue/all-plant-biostimulants-deserve-access-to-the-single-market/

The European regulatory framework is the measure of the difference between Europe and the rest of the world. In Europe, biostimulants are already incorporated into the integral crop management practices, in China biostimulants are solving specific needs and problems, step by step, biostimulants are being also part of the regular crop management tools.

Ajinomoto Group contribution: Unlocking the power of amino acids, the Ajinomoto Group is working to resolve food and health issues globally. https://www.ajinomoto.com/ Ajinomoto Group is a pioneer in the use of fermentation for producing amino acids and continues to be a world leader in the industry. A powerful and efficient network of plants ensures a stable supply of amino acid-based products.

Q: What were the changes faced by the Chinese biostimulant market in recent years? What are the changes facing crop cultivation in China? What adjustments have you made to AgriTecno’s business strategy?

In recent years, what we have seen a positive biostimulant market, with constant launches of new technologies, new products and new ideas to the local market compared with the past several years. As an active market player, we are happy to see these positive changes.

AgriTecno focuses on botanical amino acids and extracts. We entered the Chinese market in 2013 and have provided efficient solutions at various times. We also observed a very obvious change to the Chinese market in the way farmers view biostimulants. When such products were first introduced into China, farmers were not very interested and did not trust biostimulants. We fully relied on the continuous work of our agricultural input distributors, who focused their efforts on promoting biostimulant applications on high-value crops with relatively stable market prices, such as grapes, strawberries and citrus, which are crops that are said to have a high input-output ratio. China has a large cropland area, relatively complicated crop varieties and diverse hybrids, which have been established in specific planting regions, making the promotion of agricultural materials easier to a certain extent.

Until 2017, we observed that field crop farmers in some regions began to demand products for specific application scenarios, such as for rice, corn, wheat and cotton, as well as in planting regions that face extreme weather challenges that threaten product yield and quality. It is important to note that the prices of field crops have somewhat increased in recent years. Therefore, farmers have gradually started to think about the issue of input-output ratio, during a period appropriate for promoting our green agricultural inputs. In 2018, we began to plan the introduction of our crop field series: Fertigrain Foliar and Fertigrain Start. Fertigrain Foliar is a green biostimulant that improves adversity resistance and increase field crop yields, while Fusida is a green biostimulant focusing on seed nutrition. The two products were launched in the Chinese market in 2019 and 2021, respectively. After more than three years of local experimentation and continuous demonstration trials, we can identify various field crop planting difficulties and have worked out effective solutions for local issues. This is a very successful example of our product localization process in China.

Q: Could you please tell about your 2023 plan covering your new product line and its featured products, mode of action, innovation highlights and applications to crop cultivation?

For AgriTecno , the year 2023 is a very important on in terms of growth. Currently, our main task is to continuously optimize our product line and introduce more efficient solutions that are suitable to local growing conditions. We have more than 30 years of experience in research and development in Europe, with a focus on green and efficient biostimulants. We hope to introduce more efficient and cost-effective products in China through the localization process.

In 2023, we are prepared to introduce three new products to the Chinese market, which are Tecnokel Amino Zn, Tecamin Tex Fruit and Agri-NCaMgB.

Tecnokel Amino Zn is a targeted zinc supplementing amino acid-containing water-soluble fertilizer, which contains high levels of free amino acids, plant extract combinations and zinc, to effectively prevent and repair abnormal leaf fall, leaf vein yellowing, and small and brittle leaves resulting from zinc deficiency. Its other feature is its large amount of active substances in the formula, which can help crops resist abiotic stress and promote the growth and development of leaves and fruits.

Tecamin Tex Fruit is a water-soluble fertilizer with organic compound medium elements, which improves the quality of fruits, based on a distinctive plant-derived extraction process. Its combination of inorganic calcium and magnesium elements, fruit development-essential boron, zinc and molybdenum trace elements, unique plant polysaccharide, uronic acid components, and various high-activity free amino acids are all highly effective in promoting fruit development, improving fruit hardness and uniformity, enhancing coloring and ripening, increasing fruit quality and prolonging fruit shelf life.

Agri-NCaMgB is a water-soluble fertilizer with organic compound medium elements, which improves soil environment and enhances soil fertility, and can effectively increase the activity of calcium and magnesium in the soil, as well as improve the usable efficiency of effective nitrogen fertilizers and organic content, therefore, increasing soil fertility. The other feature of the product is its polyamine, polyphenol and vitamin substances in the formula, which can promote root growth and development, and improve the internal environment and harmony of the soil.

Through the introduction of these three products, we hope to truly solve growers’ difficulties via continuous trials, demonstrations and efficient services available to local farmers. Tecnokel Amino Zn and Tecamin Tex Fruit are both part of our global product series that were successfully launched and sold well in other countries. We hope that their introduction in China in 2023 will represent progress for the two products. Agri-NCaMgB is a new formulation that considers the needs of fruit crops, to significantly improve the utilization rate of fertilizers through the effective combination of distinctive plant extracts.