On 22nd July 2019, Joyn Bio (US) and NewLeaf Symbiotics (US) announced a long-term partnership valued up to USD 75 Million to offer innovative solutions and sustainability in the modern agriculture techniques, with a new class of microbes that would enhance the current crop protection system.
MarketsandMarkets™’ View Point:
Joyn Bio (US) is an independent company founded by Bayers (Germany) and Ginkgo Bioworks (US). This company was formed with a vision to implement advanced techniques in agriculture to reduce the harmful environmental impact of nitrogen fertilizers. Whereas NewLeaf Symbiotics (US) is an agricultural technology company, which is mainly involved in the product development, production, and commercialization of products that contain beneficial plant microbes such as M-trophs. NewLeaf’s products help farmers to increase their yield by promoting plants with better nutrient uptake. Thus, the company contributes to the transformation of agriculture by offering products that contain microbes to ensure sustainability. Joyn Bio (US) is mainly focusing on improving their ability to provide nitrogen fertilizers to plants, so that farmers can significantly reduce the amount of industrial nitrogen fertilizers they need for application, to attain maximum crop yields. Thus, this collaboration would help the company to use Newleaf’s resources and introduce more innovative products in the market.
However, the rising usage of biofertilizers due to the growth in the organic food industry and increasing promotion by government agencies are indirectly driving the market growth of agricultural microbials. The Government of India under the National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF) scheme, provides capital investment subsidy for commercial production units manufacturing biofertilizers. Similarly, the Chinese government is also focusing on the wider usage of biofertilizers to limit the rampant usage of chemical fertilizers. These factors are one of the key factors for companies to invest in agricultural microbials.
– said Ms. Arijita Pani, (Senior Research Associate – Food & Beverage and Agriculture at MarketsandMarkets™).
Impact of Partnership
The agricultural microbials market is projected to witness significant growth in the North American region. In addition, the rising adoption of IPM (Integrated Pest Management) practices, increasing demand for agricultural biological solutions for crop protection, and reduced development costs of microbial as compared to conventional chemical pesticides are key drivers for the growth of the agricultural microbials market. Due to this partnership, both companies would strengthen their position in the North American region. Joyn Bio’s (US) partnership with NewLeaf’s would strengthen Bayer’s position in the biological agriculture solutions business as it will get access to NewLeaf’s microbial products. Through this partnership, Joyn would use over 12,000 strains of methylotrophs for its further research and development. Currently, Bayer is focusing mainly on innovating new products to have a competitive advantage in the agricultural microbials market through this strategy, as Newleaf could play an important role to supply uninterrupted resources.
NewLeaf had developed M-troph-based products with the help of machine-learning techniques. These products include microbes, which improve plant growth and root mass. This tool helps in analyzing the data and predicts the performance of M-trop’s. These market trends have translated to increasing development of a digital library of microbes and used technology solutions to enhance the production and yield in different environmental conditions and crops.
– said Mr. Amarnath Rajendran, (Associate Manager – Food, Beverage, Animal Nutrition, and Agriculture at MarketsandMarkets™).
The figure below shows the growth opportunities available in the agricultural microbials market. The North America agricultural microbials market accounted for the largest market share in 2018. It is due to the rise in organic & eco-friendly farming practices that have led to an increase in demand for agricultural microbials.
FIGURE 1 AGRICULTURAL MICROBIALS MARKET FORECAST, 2019 TO 2025 (USD BILLION)
e – Estimated; p – Projected
Source: MarketsandMarkets™ Analysis
Top Competitors:
Some of the major competitors in the agricultural microbials market are BASF SE (Germany), Bayer AG (Germany), Syngenta (Switzerland), DowDuPont (US), Certis USA LLC (US), Valent BioSciences LLC (US), Koppert B.V.(Netherlands), Arysta LifeScience Corporation (US), Isagro S.p.A (Italy), Marrone Bio Innovations (US), and Bioworks Inc (US). Post the acquisition of Monsantoin 2018, Bayer synergized its microbial crop enhancement products with advanced processing and technological capabilities of Monsanto BioAg to develop effective agricultural microbial solutions.
Conclusion:
NewLeaf currently focuses on offering naturally-occurring microbes, whereas Joyn Bio focuses on engineering microbes to optimize their performance. This combination is projected to widen their growth opportunities in the agricultural microbial market and overcome the regulatory roadblocks in certain regions that oppose genetic engineering techniques. Furthermore, this partnership would help Joyn to enhance its research and development and launch its first product in the market. Joyn holds a license to select NewLeaf microbes for developing various novel solutions and a range of products, as well as gain support from Prescriptive Biologics Knowledgebase, which helps to combine machine learning and naturally occurring microbes.
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