On October 25th, 2017, Crop Enhancement CEO Kevin Chen introduced CropCoat® to attendees at the annual partnership meeting of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) in Washington, D.C., receiving public recognition from a top chocolate manufacturer.

Each year, this event brings leaders from industry, government, nonprofits and academia together to share new developments in the global cocoa industry. The 2017 conference theme, Accelerating Sustainability through Technology and Innovation, focused on innovation and highlighted several new technologies which aim to improve sustainability outcomes for cocoa farmers around the world. Crop Enhancement was invited to join a limited number of companies in the WCF’s inaugural Innovation Marketplace.

Kevin hosted a poster at the Innovation Marketplace and spoke about Crop Enhancement’s CropCoat® product which is applied onto cocoa pods and forms a non-toxic protective layer that shields pods from pest and disease damage. We were very pleased with the high level of interest and engagement at our booth from chocolate companies, cocoa growers, cocoa processors, certification bodies, and governmental groups. We shared with them about our ongoing field trials that are showing that CropCoat can significantly reduce yield losses caused by one of the cocoa industry’s most destructive pests, the cocoa pod borer, using sustainable chemistry. We also described ongoing evaluations on the use of CropCoat in treatment regimens to control fungal diseases including black pod. The many discussions we had at the meeting and the excellent networking were just the beginning of dialogues that continue.

We thank the WCF for this opportunity to contribute to this year’s program and look forward to connecting again in October 2018 in São Paolo, Brazil.

Crop Enhancement Presents at Entomological Society of America (ESA) Conference

On November 8th, 2017, Crop Enhancement Global Field Development Manager Eric Flora introduced our CropCoat® product to attendees at Entomology 2017, the annual conference of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), in Denver, Colorado.

Eric began with an overview of CropCoat and explained how it can be used to disrupt pest behavior without the use of conventional toxic pesticides.  CropCoat is a sprayable film made from naturally-occurring materials that are exempt from EPA tolerances.  The film protects crop tissues and reduces insect feeding success on treated plant surfaces.

Eric then shared successful results from bioassays on the cocoa pod borer and the coffee berry borer, pests which respectively affect thousands of cocoa and coffee farmers around the world. He also presented field data showing CropCoat’s effect on other insect types including spider mites and other lepidoptera.

For a copy of the presentation abstract, please click here.

We thank the ESA for the opportunity to present to association members and look forward to sharing updates at the 2018 conference in Vancouver, Canada.

How China can support its increasing demand for organic, fresh, and safe food

“China’s government has set ambitious goals to improve the sustainability of its vast agricultural sector. But farmers won’t adopt sustainability practices unless new technologies also increase their profits. Meanwhile, important factors are intensifying the urgency of the problem in China:”

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Ag Disruptor to Watch: Crop Enhancement Has Unique Approach

“Editor’s note: This piece is part of our cover story, “The Disruptors,” appearing in the November/December issue of AgriBusiness Global.

CropCoat, the signature product of San Jose, California start-up Crop Enhancement, doesn’t quite fit into any of the typical crop protection categories.

In fact, it works like no other that the ag market has seen before, according to CEO Kevin Chen.

While it’s sprayed on like a typical chemical, it’s unlike any pesticide. Instead, CropCoat acts as a shield, forming a non-toxic, microscopic film that modifies plant surfaces including the leaves, stems, fruit, and seeds to improve their resistance to pests and disease and decrease the need for pesticides.

Insect and pathogen resistance development is a non-issue (no, really). It is also fully compatible with conventional and biological products, and can fit into any IPM regime.”

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Connected to Origin: Technology’s role in a sustainable supply chain

“The prevalence of specialty coffee continues to drive consumer interest in both bean quality and ethical sourcing. Many coffee drinkers associate higher-priced beans and upscale retail experiences with greater social and environmental responsibility at the farm level. However, the growing number of ways in which sustainability is marketed to consumers can create confusion and differences of opinion around what sustainability actually means. Even for specialty roasters who maintain long-term relationships with individual farms, it’s difficult to know how much information to share with consumers about trade relationships or a producer’s agricultural practices.”

Read the Full Article >>

Q&A With Crop Enhancement Advisory Board Member and Agribusiness Leader Mary Shelman

 

We recently announced the formation of our advisory board, a group of talented individuals who will help inform and guide our business strategy, and provide useful industry connection. One of the three members of this board is Mary Shelman, who is well known in the agricultural sector as an industry visionary. Mary brings 30 years’ experience in business and academia, and is recognized as an expert in the global food and agribusiness sector. She was most recently director of Harvard Business School’s Agribusiness Program and is former chairman of the board of RiceTec Inc., where she guided the largest U.S. rice seed company from its formation to commercial product launch.

I sat down with Mary to learn more about where she sees our industry heading, and emerging trends that may have bearing on Crop Enhancement.

 

Mary, could you please share some of the key trends that you are seeing in terms of sustainability within the foodtech and agtech sectors?

Over the last decade, we’ve woken up to the challenge of feeding a larger, wealthier, and more demanding population while living in a world with limited natural resources. Agriculture today has a significant environmental footprint, producing 13% of greenhouse gas emissions and using 70% of global fresh water. So if we need to increase food production by 60% or more by 2050 (as projected by the FAO), we can’t follow the same approach. Looking ahead, we must continue to increase productivity per unit of input (land, fertilizer, crop protection, and especially water) on areas already under cultivation in order to provide enough nutritious and affordable food while preserving the environment.

One important trend to raise productivity is the “digitization” of the farm. New technologies are helping producers collect sophisticated data from many sources and model outcomes under different scenarios, which allow them to optimize yields through precise applications of inputs. These technologies often combine both hardware and software innovations: for example, sensors will measure daily field conditions, nutrient levels, and plant growth and integrate with GIS and weather information throughout the growing season. The same approach can be used for animals, such as dairy cows. These advances can help farmers maintain soil, plant and animal health and become more resilient to site-specific and regional challenges. Precision agriculture is really about doing more with less—using data to optimize every farm and the unique challenges it faces.

Another trend is the use of technology to track products from farm to fork, which allows better supply chain management—including lower waste—and also provides greater transparency and the possibility of direct consumer engagement. For example, every package of Driscoll’s berries has a unique 12-digit code on the bottom. Consumers are invited to input the code and to take a survey about the quality of the package they’ve purchased. In addition to providing consumers with a way to trace their product back to the farm, the code provides Driscoll’s with actionable insights into short-term quality issues and helps refine the company’s long-term breeding targets.

A third trend relates to consumer preferences. Consumers today care more about where their food comes from and how it was produced. Transparency, authenticity and “clean” labels are prized. We’re also seeing a greater awareness of the connection between diet and health, and diet and the environment among mainstream consumers. In the U.S., this is leading to a shift away from meat (especially beef) and higher interest in plant-based proteins. In the coming years, we may see proteins produced through tissue culture rather than from a physical animal (i.e. beef without the cow).

How about trends specifically in the area of agricultural crop protection?

For most of the 20th century, the crop protection industry focused on discovering new active ingredients. Over the last twenty years, we’ve seen a new paradigm, with crop protection moving into the plant itself (such as Bt corn). We will see more of this strategy as precise gene editing techniques such as CRISPR are applied to agriculture. However, many consumers in the U.S. and abroad remain concerned about biotech in general and the use of synthetic chemicals. Today a number of companies are working on innovative products including microbials and biochemical pesticides that have greater efficacy and are lighter on the environment. Future solutions will require greater adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) strategies, more frequent crop rotations, and the use of pest controls derived from naturally-occurring sources and/or novel technological approaches.

In addition to your leadership of the Agribusiness Program at HBS, you have led an international ag company (RiceTec). What that kinds of differences are there in domestic U.S. ag vs international Ag? What are some of the things that companies should be aware of as they enter regional markets?

Most farms in North America are large, well capitalized, highly sophisticated, and have access to the latest information. Distribution and marketing channels are well established. The U.S., in particular, benefits from strong IP and regulatory systems, a large domestic market for ag inputs, and favorable perception of technology—all of which have made it into an epicenter of new product development for seeds and crop protection products.

Internationally, ag varies by market. Some countries, like Brazil, are similar to the U.S. in average farm size and sophistication. But in many areas, farms are much smaller, knowledge and access to credit may be limited, land rights may not exist, and distribution channels for ag inputs may be immature. Infrastructure, including roads, may not be developed, making it difficult for farmers to get to market and sell their output at a price that is higher than their production cost. These factors, especially the fragmentation, present significant challenges to companies with new products to sell. And no matter the location, government plays a large role, particularly in the crop protection sector where new chemicals must be registered.

It’s exciting to see many new companies start up in the ag sector, from data-focused plays to alternative foods to new materials. At the same time, it seems that new approaches and new technologies will take time in terms of penetrating into the food and ag industries. How should startups think about go-to-market and navigating the unique challenges of commercialization specifically in the ag industry?

Given the complexity of agricultural supply chains, it’s essential to understand the entire value chain and how the profits and risks are spread across that chain. Just because your product creates value does not mean you can capture market share or build a profitable business.

For new products, it is also critical that the company and its investors understand the time horizon. Agriculture does not have the same commercialization timeline as software, where you can release a product early and then fix bugs as they come up. Most crops have one production cycle each year, meaning there’s one opportunity to sell. In addition, the farmer’s livelihood is on the line with every decision, making them understandably slow to adopt. To gain farmers’ trust requires demonstrated performance through multi-year trials under many different conditions. Some product flaws don’t show up until field-level production or a particular climatic event.

For example, in RiceTec’s early days, we launched a very high-yielding new rice seed variety based on excellent small plot and field trial data. Unfortunately, we found that, in large scale production, many plants fell over due to the stalk not being strong enough to consistently support the heavier grain weight. We didn’t see the problem until the variety was grown on a number of commercial fields spread over different geographies, soil types, and growing conditions. That led to a multimillion dollar write-off and sent us back to the breeding and selection stage for two additional years. Fortunately, we had kept our investors well informed about the risks and opportunities. They were confident in our ability to solve the problem and recognized the large potential prize for success.

Global climate trends and food security are on the minds of many world leaders and companies. Where do you see crop protection technologies having the most impact?

Rising temperatures and more variable precipitation will likely lead to higher levels of disease, pests, and even weeds—all of which reduce yields. Farmers will need new tools and technologies to understand and manage these threats in real time, as well as more targeted applications to avoid environmental damage and keep production costs low. Massive crop failures and soaring ag prices are not an attractive option in a world that must reliably feed 9.6 billion people, the majority of whom will be living in cities and thus depend on the commercial ag system for their food.

These challenges present a strong business case for greater investment in biologicals and other novel crop protection technologies, such as coatings, that are effective, easy to apply, and environmentally friendly. We also should develop systems to learn more quickly, for example by creating peer-to-peer networks that allow growers to share information about successful pest control strategies. And like other areas of agribusiness, the crop protection industry must work harder to attract the best talent if it is to successfully meet future challenges.

 

Studying Seasons of Agricultural Growth, Berkeley Students Grow Themselves

 

Guest post by BEACN

The Bay Area Environmentally Aware Consulting Network (BEACN) is a student-run environmental consulting firm at UC Berkeley that undertakes semester long projects with innovative and progressive clients. During the fall of 2016, we created a database of 50 crops that could be a potential “best fit” for Crop Enhancement (see our blog post here). This was our second semester partnering with Crop Enhancement and we were thrilled to begin a new project to better understand the future of pest and disease control.

This spring, we took a deeper look into the supply chain of coffee, citrus and cocoa. Analyzing and reconstructing the supply chain for countries where information was scarce required reaching out to salespeople, farmers, and other industry professionals who could give us insight into the daily operations of agrochemical distributors and other farm input suppliers. We learned that many farmers around the globe struggle with debt because of the very thin margins they make from selling their products. It begged the question: how can farmers afford to change their agrochemical inputs when the risk is so high for them?

Coffee

We began with coffee, the primary means of income for 25 million smallholder farmers in the world’s tropical regions. Many farmers have been in the industry all of their lives, inheriting their land and practices from parents and relatives. Many coffee growing communities are tightly knit and rely on the transfer of knowledge from neighbors and family members. At the same time, the agrochemical industry in this region is also particularly fierce, with Brazil being the largest consumer of agrochemicals in the world. Farmers are often susceptible to purchasing and spraying chemicals they don’t need. This harms the crop and threatens the safety of workers, communities and the environment.

Stricter environmental regulations regarding the use of agrochemicals also impose significant cost implications for farms. Many farmers are calling for effective alternatives for recently banned pesticides. While fertilizer and pesticide applications happen throughout the year, the need for pest and disease control is often higher during the rainy seasons in the winter. It was surprising to find out that each farm has its carefully chosen unique set of agrochemicals, reflecting the incredible diversity of growing conditions, knowledge and resources. Uncovering and piecing together the multitude of components allowing farm production to be profitable demonstrated the lack of standardized practices among farmers, even in the same region growing the same crop.

Citrus

In addition to coffee, we studied citrus farms. Citrus refers to a wide variety of fruits, including tangerines, oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruits. The United States, Brazil, and China lead the world in citrus production. Over the last decade, citrus farms in the southeastern United States have been hit hard by “citrus greening,” a disease spread by the Asian Citrus Psyllid. The US government has pledged an enormous amount of money in R&D costs to combat this disease, and some preventive measures are enjoying to a degree of success in California. However, there are many opportunities to work to prevent this disease before it begins.

Like much of farming in today’s mechanized world, citrus farmers rely on razor thin profit margins. As such, the trend has been towards larger and larger corporate owned farms. As a result, in places like Brazil, many of the family farmers are moving to crops with larger margins – such as sugar cane. This trend provides both benefits and costs, but we see the standardization of farming techniques by large growers as beneficial in the sense they are able to take larger risks, try new products, and disseminate more information on a wider scale.

We also conducted value studies on conventional citrus farms versus their organic counterparts. It was interesting to see the differences. Organic farms spend almost double the amount that a conventional farm will spend per acre due to increased labor costs and the lack of herbicides. But organic can often be sold for a premium. The differences between the two styles of farming offer exist with their own set of tradeoffs.

Cocoa

Another crop we dug into was cocoa. Global cocoa production relies on the aggregate yield of millions of small scale farmers throughout the tropics. Up to 90% of domestically produced cocoa in the three nations with the largest tonnage exported – Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Indonesia – is grown on farms less than three hectares in size. Smallholders in these regions generally lack access to the capital required for new technologies that reduce input costs and improve efficiency. Our study noted these trends, and further research explored how variance in production inputs contributed to associated yields on three continents.

We also examined the cyclical boom and bust nature of the cocoa industry and the factors that lead to rapid rises in production in some countries and precipitous crashes in others. In particular, one study of the pre-2000’s collapse of the Malaysian cocoa industry helped us understand the conditions under which these industries fail. The correlation between the prevalence of pests and the ability of smallholders to limit yield loss became clear, as did the reduction of yield loss as the best means to increase smallholder wellbeing and overall production. Going forward, promotion of agroforestry regimes by domestic governments appears capable of limiting the susceptibility of smallholder-sustained national industries to external and widespread threats like the cacao pod borer and black pod disease.

Conclusion

This semester’s project provided us with a realistic look into farming in agricultural regions of developing countries. Learning about the process of documenting and tracking the agricultural inputs showed us the diversity in approaches to pest and disease management as well as the systems of knowledge which influence farmers and farm owners.

 

The BEACN team this semester greatly enjoyed our time working with the amazing team at Crop Enhancement. Our team consisted of first through fourth year students, including Allegra Saggese (Project Manager), Anindit Gopalakrishnan, Elisa Chen, Garrett Parzygnot, Grace Pratt, and Sanju Anne. The majors of our team vary from statistics and economics to environmental studies and computer science, with everyone having a variety of interests and skills in the sustainability realm.

Improving our research and outreach abilities, the project provided us with a new appreciation for the highly complex and sophisticated global market of agriculture we intensely depend on. Engaging with stakeholders across the entire supply chain and learning about the methodology of technological diffusion in these geographical locations was a unique growth opportunity for the whole team and will help shape our future career paths.

Crop Enhancement Appoints VP R&D, Builds Go-To-Market Team as AgTech Materials Science Pioneer Expands Industry Focus

 

Dr. Damian Hajduk heads up R&D; Mark Russell and Eric Flora spearhead market- and field-development efforts; Marcus Meadows-Smith, Mark Phillipson, and Mary Shelman to advise on business strategy

CAMBRIDGE, MA.—June 27, 2017: Crop Enhancement Inc., an innovator of sustainable agrochemical formulations for agriculture applications, has appointed Damian A. Hajduk, Ph.D., VP of research and development. Dr. Hajduk will lead efforts to expand the range of applications for Crop Enhancement’s breakthrough technology that improves crop yields, eliminates or minimizes pesticide use, and enables precise and effective delivery of active ingredients and fertilizers. To accelerate commercialization of its technology, Crop Enhancement also has formed an advisory board and added key personnel to its team to connect with leading growers and partners in the agricultural community.

“We currently have several in-market trials underway and the results are extremely encouraging,” said Kevin Chen, Ph.D., CEO of Crop Enhancement. “These new appointments will enable us to broaden our range of applications and build instrumental relationships with a broad network of industry and business partners.”

Dr. Hajduk joins Crop Enhancement from eatsa (also known as Keenwawa), a company that develops and operates automated quick-service restaurants featuring high-protein grains such as quinoa, where he was VP of food science. Previously, Dr. Hajduk was the chief scientific officer of Landec, a manufacturer of seed treatments for agriculture, packaging technologies for the food industry, packaged vegetables and salads for retail and food service, and biopolymers for medical applications. Before that, Dr. Hajduk served in a number of scientific and leadership roles at Symyx Technologies, where he developed and applied technologies for high-throughput research to accelerate product discovery.

In addition to Dr. Hajduk, Crop Enhancement has appointed two experts from the agricultural industry to lead market- and field-development activities:

Crop Enhancement also announced the formation of a three-person advisory board to spearhead business strategy.

Crop Enhancement’s products target annual crop values in excess of $100 billion worldwide across regions that include North America, Southeast Asia, Greater China, Latin America, and Africa. To boost crop yields in these regions, Crop Enhancement has developed proprietary films and formulations that modify plant surfaces (leaves, stems, fruit, and seeds) to improve their resistance to pests and diseases, and decrease the need for harmful pesticides. Crop Enhancement’s formulations can also be applied with agricultural inputs like nutrients, fertilizers and other active ingredients, enabling farmers to precisely control their release, thereby reducing costs and increasing yield.

 

About Crop Enhancement

Crop Enhancement is a venture-backed agriculture technology corporation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded by renowned materials scientist and serial entrepreneur Dr. David Soane, Crop Enhancement is developing sustainable agrochemical formulations that employ advanced and environmentally friendly chemistry to improve crop yields, eliminate or minimize pesticide use, and enable precise and effective delivery of active ingredients and fertilizers. Visit us at www.crop-enhancement.com.

 

Media contact:

Tim Cox, ZingPR, tim@zingpr.com, 650-369-7784

We’re thrilled to announce that Crop Enhancement won the pitch competition for new materials startups at Plug and Play Tech Accelerator’s 2017 Summer Summit (held on June 7 at the Sunnyvale, CA, campus). The event concluded a 12-week accelerator program which enabled us to make valuable connections with Plug and Play’s corporate partners including some of the world’s most recognized leaders in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and applied materials science.

 

 

“The startups in our programs have amazing potential to shape our future. We connect them with corporations who can bring them to market faster. We believe Crop Enhancement will help farmers around the globe.” 

Saeed Amidi
Founder and CEO, Plug and Play Tech Center

 

 

 

It was an honor to join Plug and Play’s 2017 Spring cohort of startups and we’ll continue to support PnP as an active contributor as it grows its Food & Beverage vertical.

You can watch a short video of our winning pitch here.

 

UPDATED September 29, 2017: Crop Enhancement is featured in Plug and Play’s Disruptor League.  Check out the video here or below:

 

 

 

On May 5th, 2017, Crop Enhancement CEO Kevin Chen spoke about innovation in global markets at the Silicon Valley AgTech Conference in Mountain View, CA.

Now in its fourth year, the conference drew over 500 investors, entrepreneurs and customers focused on solving the most pressing challenges in agriculture.

Kevin spoke about Crop Enhancement’s CropCoat® technology which helps farmers reduce crop loss by protecting crops with a nontoxic, microscopic coating to leaves, stems and fruit. Early field trials in Indonesia, China, and the United States show that CropCoat can increase yields and reduce pesticide applications on crops including cacao and citrus.

“We’re committed to helping farmers improve their profitability while reducing their use of toxic chemicals.  New pest control products must be environmentally conscious, affordable, effective, and easy to use.”
        Kevin Chen, PhD
        CEO, Crop Enhancement

Panelists agreed that local partnerships and relationships are critical to increasing adoption rates for new agricultural technologies. Often, the success of a new product boils down to relationships with growers.

Investors at the conference spoke about the breadth of new agriculture technologies entering the market (from pest & disease management to robotic hardware to data aggregation to genome editing) as entrepreneurs continue to bring new and useful solutions that help farmers around the world enhance their businesses.

We thank the organizers at the RoyseLaw AgTech Innovation Network for the opportunity to speak at the Silicon Valley AgTech Conference and plan to return next year.