The Argentine biotech innovator battling corn leafhoppers with nature's arsenal

By HECTOR HUERGO

After searching for stories concerning the pest, the corn leafhopper, I came across a life story that I was completely unaware of.

The mobilization of the entire agricultural network to combat the insect has already achieved substantial progress. Firstly, Senasa has just registered three insecticides from major international agri-input companies, such as Syngenta and Corteva. Farmers will soon have chemical tools that support agronomic management and regional coordination to manage the pest.  

During this search, I came across an Argentine development that has been used for three years in Paraguay and Brazil, where the pest is endemic and under control. It is a biological insecticide based on the microorganism, Beauveria bassiana. Following a related trail we met Juan Pablo Brichta, owner of Agro Advance Technology (AAT), a laboratory that was launched in 2007 and is located in the Pilar Industrial Park. The company has a research area with several biologists and a production center with 32,000 liters of fermenters.

The young entrepreneur Juan Pablo Brichta in his plant and laboratory in Pilar

But we were much more interested in the character than in his facilities and products, for which we had no ideas about. Whether an anticide bait to nitrogen-fixing bacteria in leaves, all were biotechnological projects. Innovation follows under-explored commercial paths, such as online sales.

Why is the character interesting? I will explain. Juan Pablo is 43 years old and is an agricultural engineer. He was also teacher and has held several professorships with a career in agricultural chemistry, biology, and business. He founded the Argentine Chamber of Biologicals (CABIO). When he put established AAT, he was just 27 years old, but that was not his first venture.

The first was when he was 10 years old when he started a vermiculture. With the financial support of his parents, the venture became a production unit that produced hundreds of tons of products. At the same time, as a teenage businessman, he became a speaker at events related to his activity. In those days, being an entrepreneur did not have the glamor that it has currently.

Later, he entered agronomy. Today, he considers himself more ingenious than an engineer. His thoughts are captured on a banner at the entrance to the laboratory, with a photo of a farmer standing over their crop. The epigraph states Jill Clapperton’s statement: ″When we are on the ground, we are on the roof of another world.″

Brichta showed us a video with a container filled with live leafhoppers. Next to it was another with leafhoppers treated with Beauveria bassiana the previous day. Only a few remained alive and the majority were dead at the bottom of the bowl. It seems that within the dynamics of the process, some infect others and biological control becomes viral with the dissemination of the fungus’ spores, which attacks chitin (external tissue) and penetrates the insect.

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