Acadian Plant Health: Volatile weather conditions and their impact on crop yield drive the market for crop stress-managing biostimulants in Latin America

Editor’s Note: The biological market in Latin America is one of the fastest developing sectors in the agricultural input industry. Brazil is the largest market for biologicals in Latin America, with more than 500 biological products having been registered.

Farmers in Latin America are actively seeking biological solutions for pest and disease management, nutrient supplementation, and soil health improvement. Additionally, governments in Latin America are implementing incentive programs and regulatory changes to encourage the adoption of biological inputs in agriculture. These initiatives provide valuable support and incentives for farmers, leading to market growth and greater acceptance of agricultural biologicals.

Considerable development potential is attracting the attention of all biological product manufacturers and distributors worldwide, who are accelerating the business layout of new technologies, new products and new applications related to biologicals.

Accordingly, AgroPages recently invited some key players in this field to share their views. In this article, Daniel Forlivio, South LATAM VP, Acadian Plant Health shared his views over the market landscape of the biological market in Latin America, the layout, application, regulation of biologicals, opportunities and challenges for biologicals, as well as the plans to launch new biologicals in Latin America and more.

Could you describe the market landscape of the biological market in Latin America? What are the drivers, challenges and trends of the development of biologicals in this region?

Daniel Forlivio: Acadian Plant Health™ is an Ascophyllum nodosum seaweed biostimulant company, so we will only comment on this segment of the biological market. Seaweed extracts account for more than 33% of the total biostimulant market worldwide and are expected to grow at 12.2% CAGR in South America in the forecast period 2023 to 2030. Brazil is the highest-growing country in LATAM.

Volatile weather conditions and their impact on crop yield drive the market for crop stress-managing biostimulants in this region. Key drivers continue to be aligned to stress management, yield and quality increase, water management, soil health, and at the end of the day performance vs cost/benefit. One of the main challenges in the market is low-quality technology being marketed by some companies which depreciates this technology.

In 2023, Brazil is expected to dominate the South American market for row crops, while in North LATAM market (Mexico) is leading with solutions for specialty crops such as agave, avocado, and berries. The changing crop protection market with manufacturers' organic solutions portfolio is rising and creating the demand for the seaweed extract biostimulant market.

Could you talk about the regulatory landscape of biologicals in Latin America? What impact do these regulations have on your company’s business?

Daniel Forlivio: We expect that the regulation landscape will be more restrictive moving forward. Today there are different regulations throughout the countries in the region. In Latin America, biostimulants are covered by national laws under different categories. Brazil regulates some plant biostimulants as ″biofertilizers″. Chile in 2021 published Law N° 21.349 and in 2022 Resolution 6725 defining and regulating biostimulants.  Ecuador regulates and defines biostimulants as per Resolution 0218 and its Technical Manual for registration and control of fertilizers, soil amendments, and related products. In Peru, a proposed regulation was published recently and it’s open for comments until September 1^st, 2023. Mexico still has no specific regulation for biostimulants with some registered under fertilizers, plant growth regulators or inoculants. This creates a difficult process in Mexico to get products registered with timing being anywhere from 3-5 years for approval.

We expect regulations in LATAM to become more harmonic in the future. For Acadian, we’re pleased to see more regulation around this market as this will help ensure standards are put in place that all companies will need to adhere to.

Could you give us an overview of your company's biologicals and their special features, application situation in Latin America? Could you share some novel approaches to production and formulation of biologicals?

Daniel Forlivio: ‘Sea Beyond’ is our new vision, leadership, and commitment to providing innovative and sustainable solutions for global agriculture. We are challenging conventional thinking to ‘Sea Beyond’ the way the biostimulant industry delivers agricultural solutions that respond to the growing global demand for food and climate stress.

In speaking with customers, we realized that there is a misconception of ‘either/or’ when it comes to performance and sustainability. There is a perception that you couldn’t get the yield needed with biological products. So, we decided to challenge this conventional thinking. Working together with our industry partners, our biostimulants promise stronger yielding crops in a sustainable manner, which we have been proving with science for the past 40 years. What we must do as an industry now is see beyond the current state of the agricultural inputs industry and offer solutions that provide high-value, crop productivity technology that shifts from a peripheral add-on to an essential component of sustainable agriculture.

Our expertise in both productivity and sustainability is what makes us stand out from other biostimulant companies. We are built to serve the crop protection, biostimulant, and fertilizer industries with our unique organizational structure of crop input professionals and scientists – who all understand the standards within these industries. This means we have the science, research, facilities, and, most importantly, the people, to formulate the best of our biostimulant technology to design synergistic and complementary solutions to crop protection, fertilizer and biostimulant companies.

What are the considerations for farmers/growers to use biologicals? How does your company educate growers and farmers on the use of biologicals?

Daniel Forlivio: Farmers will always consider a cost/benefit analysis. There’s good reason for this. Growing a crop takes multiple different inputs and costs can add up quickly. When it comes to selling products to farmers, they need to see real results.

This is where the biostimulant industry has faltered in the past. There have been far too many companies that have made claims on products with no efficacy data to substantiate them. This creates a challenge with speculative information and unproven products. To the point where some in the ag industry have avoided the realm of biostimulant solutions altogether. Yet the need for sustainable and ecologically friendly solutions in agriculture continues to grow and biostimulants are products that can deliver.

Acadian Plant Health™ has a very strong base of scientific data within the company. Forty years’ worth. Most of which have been peer-reviewed and even published in scientific journals. Showing the efficacy of our product with real-world trial data is what truly matters to a grower.

What and where are the biggest opportunities and challenges for biologicals in Latin America?

Daniel Forlivio: We see many opportunities for biostimulants in Latin America. There continues to be a rising need for sustainable agriculture, with crop export requirements being harder to reach with respect to quality requirements.  

Crop prices are very much connected to us with commodity prices driving crop input decisions on the farm. The challenge is to convince a grower they need a biostimulant in their crop plan and not just as a peripheral add-on if crop prices are good. Fertilizer prices also dictate some of this decision-making as well.

What are the plans to launch new biologicals in Latin America? Highlight the development plan in Latin America.

Daniel Forlivio: We continue to support Latin America by providing a wider range of Ascophyllum nodosum based seaweed extract biostimulant products to drive the market's expansion. In addition, our R&D and the modernization of seaweed extract product in this market has opened up more business potential for Acadian Plant Health.

Lastly, farmers are always looking for innovative solutions that are also friendly to the environment. We intend to continue to collaborate with partners to develop tailor-made solutions and develop novel formulations that optimize our seaweed extracts for increased stress mitigation.

If you'd like to share your company's story and products/solutions. Please contact Grace Yuan via: grace@agropages.com