Sumitomo Biorational: Programas integrados y las tres empresas
29 de julio de 2026 According to most market estimates cited by CropLife® Magazine, global agricultural biologicals sales reached approximately $17 billion by the end of 2025, while the U.S. agricultural biologicals market generated more than $3.5 billion in revenue during 2025. Between now and 2030, the marketplace is projected to have a compound annual growth rate of between 8% and 13%.
It’s this projected growth curve that Sumitomo Biorational is hoping to take advantage of with bringing together three companies.
Dr. Shinsuke (Shin) Shojima, President and CEO at SBC
On April 1, Sumitomo Biorational Co. LLC (SBC), una subsidiaria de Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd, began operations. Based in Libertyville, IL, the new entity brought together Valent BioSciences LLC, MGK, and Valent North America LLC to become Sumitomo Chemical’s Center of Excellence for Biorational Innovation.
Valent Estados Unidos will continue to operate as a separate company, responsible for the development and commercialization of conventional, biorational and botanical solutions for North American agriculture.
According to the company’s website, SBC is dedicated to “providing integrated, sustainable biorational solutions derived from natural sources such as microbials and botanicals to customers” around the globe.
“Sumitomo Chemical has been committed to biorational and botanical for decades,” says Dr. Shinsuke (Shin) Shojima, President and CEO at SBC. “So, for us, it’s a long-term commitment.”
According to Matt Plitt, President and CEO at Valent U.S.A., the new company’s integrated capabilities will offer a strong positioning for the biologicals market in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
“One of the unique things about the Sumitomo Chemical system is the access to conventional chemistry along with biorational and botanical chemistry,” Plitt says. “We’re the only global company that can advance these three product categories from discovery all the way to commercialization today.”
When it comes to pest resistance, integrated programs of synthetic chemistries, biologicals and plant health are in demand. According to data collected by CropLife® Magazine in its annual Biologicals Survey for 2026, 98% of biological products use occurs as a supplement with conventional ones. Respondents of this combined approach say it offers different modes of action in crop fields and can provide more broad-based levels of pest control.
Plitt expects this trend to only deepen over the next few years.
“We’re definitely seeing an integrated approach across the specialty crop segment,” he says. “The next opportunity, will be to successfully expand that same practice into the row crop space in North America.”
Still, some barriers remain in the adoption of biological products in North America. According to Plitt, this is particularly true because of historic issues that have been present in performance consistency, data validation, and grower confidence in earlier products that overpromised and underdelivered in field trials.
He points to the adoption rates in other countries such as Brazil of what could happen in North America. According to statistics, Brazil leads the world in agricultural biologicals usage, with an adoption rate exceeding 60% among growers on approximately 55% of the country’s cultivated land.
Only through more integrated research and development — such as what the creation of Sumitomo Biorational can offer — will the U.S. biologicals market be able to mirror the success rates in countries such as Brazil, he says.
“It has to have efficacy, we have to be competitive, and we have to be providing the grower with the right return on investment,” Plitt says. “As we put the science with the commercial offering, that’s where it comes together to really meet the needs of the farmer.”
Soil and Success
In addition to increasing adoption rates in the U.S. for biological products, SBC’s Shojima also foresees soil health as a potential area of growth for the newly formed company.
“How we can improve the soil system? How we can make it very sustainable and regenerative? [There are] so many opportunities and room that we can grow,” Shojima says.
In the meantime, Plitt says the companies will focus on strategic foresight rather than a single product category. Ultimately, he says that demand for biological and alterative products is increasingly being shaped by downstream pressures to farm in more sustainable and environmentally-responsible ways.
“We have to find a way to get three, five, or seven years ahead of that,” he says.
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