Alice Toderi, Chief Marketing Officer at Hello Nature, talks about challenges and opportunities in biostimulant market growth

The biostimulant market is growing exponentially, but biostimulant providers face significant challenges when expanding markets for their products. How do the leading players in the industry address the challenges while grasping opportunities and harnessing their advanced technologies for market growth? 

Alice Toderi, Chief Marketing Officer at Hello Nature, shared her views with us.

What are the main challenges of expanding biostimulant adoption? 

 The number of farmers using biostimulants to improve the quality and yield of their crops has increased in recent years, essentially because they are environmental-friendly innovation to enhance the sustainability and profitability of agricultural production. Despite that, biostimulants are very technical products, and to obtain the desired effects, it is necessary to carefully choose the right time of application during the crop cycle, the right dose and the best application method. Therefore, education and technical support to farmers are a great challenge and the essential lever to support and further develop biostimulants adoption. As Hello Nature, we adopt a hands-on approach with continuous training and educational workshops for farmers, distributors and other constituents. 

Another related challenge is the complexity of the mode of action of biostimulants which act on plant metabolism and physiological processes, and are multifunctional and versatile products. This feature being from one side the advantage of these solutions is on the other a disadvantage because it creates doubts and confusion about the possibilities of real use of this category of products. 

Thanks to our R&D department and our collaboration and partnership with universities we have a deep understanding of how and why our products need to be used, and we have fine tuned specific solutions that meet growers’ needs, delivering the expected effects. 

In addition, one of the biggest ones we are facing is geopolitics. Some large and promising markets (for example in Middle East) are impacted, slackened, or can even be stopped because of political issues which strongly limit business. This is why it is crucial for us to be present in as many markets as possible to balance and recover from any geopolitical implication far beyond our control.

Finally, we cannot deny that the cost could be a limit for the introduction of biostimulants, especially in low profitability crops, such as arable crops, or countries where the investment for agriculture innovation is very limited. On this side, we work also to evaluate the impact of biostimulants on crop production’s profitability, considering that biostimulants represent a process innovation resulting either in a yield increase, a higher quality level and a cost reduction due to a lower inputs’ requirement.

More and more biostimulants are applied in combination with pesticides or fertilizers. What are the market opportunities for biostimulants under such a combination?

More and more biostimulants are applied in combination with pesticides or fertilizers. What are the market opportunities for biostimulants with such a combination?

From a farmer’s standpoint, it is essential to apply biostimulants in combination with plant protection products and fertilizers, firstly to optimize the costs and secondly to leverage the benefits of mixing these inputs. Our R&D department has been working for many years on this topic and today thanks to research, to the numerous lab and field trials we can affirm that mostly of our biostimulants can be mixed with the most common fertilizers and crop protection products on the market. 

An obvious advantage for farmers also corresponds to market opportunities for companies. The use of biostimulants together with traditional fertilizers can improve their use efficiency, the so-called Fertilizer Use Efficiency (FUE). Biostimulants enhance plant metabolism, nutrients absorption and utilization to valorize the applied fertilizers and reduce the application dose without compromising productivity and farmers’ profitability. On this purpose, we have recently launched a new generation of products combining NPKs water soluble fertilizers and biostimulants: the Cerbero Green range. NPKs water soluble fertilizers with addition of plant stimulating peptides (PSP) with biostimulant action have been tested in several trials, in controlled conditions and open field, showing an enhancement of FUE thanks to the presence of peptides which act as signaling molecules improving nutrients acquisition and assimilation. These innovative products allow to increase yield, quality and at the same time to reduce the dose of fertilizers applied by on average 15%. 

In addition, the mix of biostimulants with plant protection products is a valid method to reduce the chemical stress caused by herbicides application on different crops, especially row crops. In this case, we have observed how PSP-based biostimulants consistently help plants to better recover from herbicide application by increasing antioxidant supply, stimulating antioxidant biosynthesis, and activating antioxidant defense enzymes. PSP-based biostimulants maintained higher photosynthetic activity and a better nutritional status in the shoot tissues leading to a higher crop performance. Recently, we are also experiencing the mix of our PSP-based biostimulants with fungicides, and we are observing good and very promising synergistic effects. We are convinced that the combination of biostimulants with fertilizers and plant protection products will further promote the development of the biostimulant industry.

What advanced technologies do you apply to the R&D of biostimulants? 

Hello Nature’s international R&D center located in the US uses the most cutting-edge technologies to study and translate the language of plants, and to understand their life, biology, needs and issues in order to find efficient and effective biostimulant solutions for agriculture. 

First of all, the search for sustainable and innovative solutions cannot ignore technological innovation: this is why we make important investments in Research and Development, through in-house research activities and scientific collaborations with important institutions and international universities. Based on the eco-efficiency model, Hello Nature’s research philosophy respects the environment and production process efficiency for agricultural sustainability. 

The development process for new products focuses on the use of renewable resources and on the preservation of the most valuable ones, like water, soil quality and biodiversity. In order to create products that meet the highest quality standards and comply with eco-efficiency principles, we have established an advanced system to develop biostimulants, microbial inoculants and biofertilizers with high added value. The system is based on the use of the most advanced ″omics″ sciences, such as Phenomics, Metabolomics, Metagenomics and Transcriptomics. The first step of the process is the discovering of formulations able to modify in the expected way the phenotype that we carry out with an automated phenotyping platform. After the screening, the selected formulations are studied to understand the mode of action thanks to Metabolomics first and the transcriptomics after. The third phase is crucial because it concerns the confirming of the efficacy of selected formulations on crops and optimization of application rate and timing in real growing conditions through hyperspectral sensors installed on drones and metagenomics. At the end, we also evaluate the formulation impact on quality and sustainability. This final step involves the characterization of quality aspects in the yield such as vitamins and antioxidants content and measurement of the formulation environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gas reduction, reduction of the use of other chemical inputs through the Life Cycle Assessment methodology.

Where are your biostimulants provided? What do you think is their local market potential? 

Our company has grown a lot in recent years and as leader of the biostimulants sector, it was necessary to strengthen the financial, regulatory, marketing and sales departments to guarantee a solid development and the supply of products over time. In addition, much attention has also been paid to the company organization. In fact, even if we are still among the latest family-owned business of the sector, we have officially structured and organized as a global group, present in more than 80 countries, with 12 subsidiaries and commercial offices. This new organization allows us to consolidate our leadership in the biostimulant segment and respond even more effectively to the future challenges. 

Regarding the market’s potential, it looks like crop segments can be more important than markets per say. Over the last years we have seen that some previously considered mature markets sharply became some of the most dynamic ones, such as row crops. In this respect, some traditional European markets will for sure keep playing a major role in the coming years. That being said it is obvious that by size and dynamism, markets like China, India and Africa will be the next great challenges with an enormous growth potential in all kind of crops. 

Please give us some examples of growers’ common misconceptions about biostimulant application. What would you recommend to end-users to ensure the best performance of such products?

Sometimes farmers believe that biostimulants are like ″magical tools″ that can help increase yield, quality or recover from extreme climatic events like drought, salinity, hail and so on just after the application or, on the opposite, some farmers are skeptical about biostimulants because they state that is not possible to see any effect. These are clearly misconceptions because biostimulants have a proven action and when applied to plants or the rhizosphere, they can stimulate natural processes to enhance nutrient uptake, nutrient efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stress and crop quality. In fact, we can state that the sector is currently going towards a great commercial growth backed up by solid and rigorous scientific research. Just think about the fact that last year, in 2022, more than 400 papers demonstrating the activity of biostimulants were published at international level. 

We should always remember that we are talking about science applied to agriculture, not about magical solutions and above all not about solutions that can be applied at any time for any problem. The main point is that biostimulants must be applied following specific rules, timings, and recommendations to be effective and meet farmers’ needs. In this sense, companies of the sector should provide clear indications on how to use their solutions, based on real efficacy data and multi-year trials. 

We recommend farmers to rely on serious companies that have demonstrated investments in R&D and that are producing their own biostimulants with patented technologies. You need labs, greenhouses, scientists, and researchers to have a deep understanding about how and why products work. Manufacturer-conducted field trials and reports are a good place to start the evaluation process, but the real proof is what happens in a farmer’s own field. That’s why choosing a manufacturer that provides education and technical support is essential. External collaborations and partnerships with universities also are good proof of the commitment to building a more sustainable and profitable agriculture for farmers.