Achieving More Sustainable Crop Nutrition

Advances in agricultural productivity in the past century have been key to feeding a growing population, yet some of these advances have an environmental impact. For example, today’s food systems are responsible for 20-30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and runoff of agricultural nutrients into waterways contribute to hypoxic zones downstream which threaten marine life and fisheries and contribute to biodiversity loss.

To meet the needs of our global population and to sustain the health and productivity of our agricultural lands and waterways, we must find new and better ways to produce food.

How Science is Supporting More Sustainable Agriculture

Scientists from Pivot Bio presented at the 2nd Annual CRISPR & NBT AgBio Congress, along with other industry and academic researchers, leaders from the USDA, FDA, American Seed Trade Association and DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office. Among the topics discussed were the technical advances and views about precision genome editing and novel breeding technologies in agriculture, and how these technologies will help increase crop yields and develop environmentally sustainable products – starting with fertilizer.

Fertilizer’s “Goldilocks Dilemma”

The world’s food system is dependent on fertilizer. Without fertilizer for worldwide food production, we would produce half as much food. While this dependence on synthetic fertilizer has enabled greater food supply, it has created unintended environmental consequences.

• Today, the production and use of synthetic fertilizer contributes 1.31 gigatons of greenhouse gas (GHG) annually, accounting for 2.5% of global GHG emissions.
• Between 30-60% of synthetic fertilizer applied is lost to runoff or volatilization into N₂O, a gas 300x more potent than CO₂. Excess runoff of nitrogen fertilizer is damaging to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
• Applied to the soil’s surface, synthetic nitrogen can cause soil degradation and is inherently inefficient. Over 40 percent of farmland is over-fertilized, resulting in an estimated $200 billion in loss annually for growers.
• Because the production of synthetic fertilizer is highly dependent on fossil fuels, its cost is highly volatile. This can lead to fields around the globe being under-fertilized, limiting their yield potential.

How Pivot Bio is Transforming Fertilizer

At the conference, the Pivot Bio team shared its progress in developing microbes that fix atmospheric nitrogen for use by major cereal crops. Our goal? To create a fertilizer that provides the “just right” nutrition plants need throughout the entire growing season – without the harmful consequences of today’s synthetic fertilizer.

Pivot Bio’s nitrogen-producing microbes adhere to the corn plant roots and are not susceptible to runoff or leaching, keeping our waterways cleaner. Regardless of weather or precipitation, our microbes respond and nourish based on the plant’s needs every minute, every day. This adaptability is crucial to farmers as the elements and crop stresses can vary dramatically across one single acre and within a few days, and as farmers face more extreme weather events.

A Microbial Future

Pivot Bio’s first generation product is being tested across the Corn Belt this summer as part of our Intent to Pivot trials. We anticipate commercial product introduction in 2019, and this milestone is a critical step toward providing new tools to farmers that help them nourish their crops while keeping our air and waterways clean.

As Pivot Bio looks forward, we will continue to look for ways to use our microbial technology to help more crops manage environmental stress conditions.

To view the Pivot Bio team’s full presentation from the CRISPR&NBT Agbio Congress, click here.