From the Editor

Renee Targos Editor

When goals are set by a group of people, often it’s the miscommunication that slows them down in achieving desired results. A lack of common language around a subject makes gaining an understanding even more difficult, which is why Thomas Laurent, CEO of Micropep, a leader in biological crop protection and plant health, was one of 24 industry experts brought together by Paimun (PJ) Amini, Senior Director of Venture Investments for Leaps by Bayer to create the Ag PlayBook.

The group created and defined five phases to discuss the development of crop protection products. The goal of the Ag PlayBook was to get industry professionals on the same page when talking about new ideas and solutions for growers.

As Laurent said in his LinkedIn post: “one of the major problems we have in the crop protection industry is the lack of common language to talk about product development. Contrary to the pharmaceutical industry where the different drug discovery phases are well established and understood by the whole Startup + VC + Big Corporation ecosystem, companies in the crop protection space are using different terms to talk about R&D phases. This creates confusion and slows down collaboration and partnership. There was no “Playbook” available in the ag space to guide new companies.”

But now there is. The 60-page white paper playbook outlines five phases of development. The first chapter shows the costly and long road of creating a new crop protection molecule or formulation.

It’s a great start for helping to create better communication and efficiency in the industry. This work and other efforts to reform regulatory/registration processes and to embrace artificial intelligence will help to bring  solutions for growers with a shrinking toolbox.

But for now, let’s celebrate with Amini, Laurent, and this group of experts who took the time to move the crop protection industry forward. And from now on, as Laurent says, “let’s all start referring to these “5 phases” when talking about crop protection product development!”  •

Images courtesy of MicroPep.