Gates Foundation Funds Grant for Biotech Company to Produce a Breakthrough in the Future of Agriculture in Poorer Nation

August saw the Gates Foundation and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom grant a $2.83 million grant to the British biotech business Legume Technology. AgFunderNews reports that the company intends to provide farmers in Africa with a cost-effective and safe way to enhance crop health and soil fertility with the additional cash.

Africa’s total soil fertility has declined over time, mostly because of excessive chemical fertilizer use that has sped up acidification.

Legume Technology has spent the last 20 years building bacterial and fungal microbial biofertilizerskeeping to fight that issue. These biofertilizers essentially create natural alternatives to chemical fertilizers by capturing nitrogen from the air and keeping it in the soil for the crops to absorb.

Redesigning the packaging as part of the company’s new strategy will enable more small-scale farmers to use biofertilizers in smaller containers.

Bruce Knight, a trained microbiologist who co-founded Legume Technology and serves as its managing director, said, “Within that small bag will be a microbe that has the power to transform the lives of millions of African smallholders by making their crops grow bigger and better, with more productive harvests, with no environmental side effects.”

Farmers have found it more and more difficult to sustain crop production in recent years. This is mostly because burning fossil fuels is causing air pollution, which is overheating our planet.

Certain places are no longer suitable for crops that are typically grown there because of the combination of changing climate conditions brought on by the overheating and unexpected extreme weather events.

Consequently, the development of innovative technologies that facilitate crop growth and food supply assurance for farmers while reducing their dependency on chemical fertilizers has become increasingly crucial. It has been shown that fertilizers have several downstream negative effects that eventually deteriorate ecosystem health.

“Biologicals are the future of agricultural productivity,” Knight stated.