Exosect announces funding to develop biological grain admixture

Exosect Ltd, a leading provider of enabling technologies, announced that it successfully won a competitive bid for grant funding under the first round of UK government’s Agri-tech Catalyst fund, which is administered by the Technology Strategy Board. The focus of the project is to complete the development of the first biological grain admixture for the control of insects and mites in stored grain for the EU. The grain admix technology utilises Entostat, Exosect’s proprietary platform technology, to enable the delivery of the entomopathogenic fungi, Beauveria bassiana, directly to grain before it is placed in storage.

 

Exosect will be working in partnership with Eseye, a specialist in machine-to-machine connectivity, who will assist in developing systems to monitor data from a range of sources within the grain handling process. Further participants on the project include, Campden BRI, Camgrain, Agrauxine, The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), BioRational and David Williams Consultant.

 

The award to develop admixture in grain comes as Exosect’s current project based on using Entostat, to deliver Beauveria bassiana to the surface of grain stores, comes to a close. Exosect intends to submit a dossier for Annex 1 registration in the EU this autumn.

 

Exosect’s Business Development Director, Rob Cannings comments, “We have developed a significant amount of know-how in delivering this biological. This award will help us in our commitment to further develop a much needed, new form of pest control technology for the commodity storage sector where the few remaining active ingredients are under threat of removal by the regulatory authorities.