Biostimulant Battlegrounds: The Legitimacy of a Program and Market Implications

Biologicals and micronutrients have been looked at as the red-headed step child of crop inputs for decades— referenced as snake oil, garbage, useless and a host of other terms degrading their value.

Meanwhile, there have been studies illustrating the value of many biostimulants and micronutrients in plants for decades and if you look at the inputs applied to any world record corn, soybean, wheat or oilseed rape (canola) crop, they all tend to apply multiple applications of the aforementioned inputs.

Still, there has been a lack of legitimacy associated with all of these products— part of it is complexity, part of it is a lack of understanding, some related to the type of companies that sold biostimulants in the past and part because they are often used not as part of a systematic approach to production.

Over the last number of years that perception has begun to shift— not only have companies like Bayer, Syngenta, FMC, UPL, Mosaic, Nutrien, Yara and Corteva begun to publicly emphasize their importance to the future of crop production and profitable farming, but they have begun to acquire companies, invest R&D resources and partner with organizations that specialize in the area of biologicals. A few examples:

• Corteva acquired Stoller and Symborg in 2022

• Mosaic acquired Plant Response in 2022

• Syngenta acquired Valagro in 2020

• UPL acquired Arysta in 2019

• Bayer established a joint venture with Ginkgo Bioworks (Joyn Bio) in 2018

These are just scratching the surface of the global initiatives. Public emphasis and investment signal legitimacy: