The Search For Biological Solutions

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future report.

Pests and diseases are constantly adapting to agricultural inputs all while many of these tools are getting regulated away. Farmers are forced to look for new solutions, and biological companies like Bioatlys think they can offer some solutions. New CEO Kevin Helasch says their biofungicide is derived from animals, llamas to be exact.

Helasch… “We take VHH antibodies or nanobodies or agrobodies - whichever term you want to use, they're all relevant - from llamas. And then we use that to develop biofungicides and in our pipeline bioinsecticides. So it's a large molecule, quite different from small molecules that have been in the industry for quite some time. So it is a completely new approach. We expect our first product will be registered in the US, which is in with the EPA now as a biofungicide, mainly focusing on botrytis and powdery mildew, and then continuing to bring products to the marketplace thereafter off of our platform.”

As he mentioned, this product is not available yet, but they hope will receive EPA approval in the near future.