Industry Insights: Biotalys CEO Patrice Sellès Discusses the Future of Biological Controls
21 September 2023 Biological controls have been around for as long as agriculture has existed. Their effectiveness has been questioned for nearly as long. Patrice Sellès, CEO of Biotalys, an 80-person, Ghent, Belgium-based biological manufacturer, has big plans for the company. Simply put, he wants the company to help reinvent food protection. AgriBusiness Global interviewed Sellès to learn more about the future of biocontrols and where they fit into the future of crop inputs.
AgriBusiness Global: How has the new Green Deal affected the crop inputs industry in Europe?
Patrice Sellès: It’s the foundation of what’s happening right now. In Europe, a couple of years ago there has been this Green Deal, the idea that over the next decade we should decrease the use of chemical pesticides by volume, by around 50%. It has been a key driver. And together with that, there was an increase of the land that was used for organic agriculture by up to 20% to 25%.
So, those were key drivers for a number of investments. And also looking at how the European community was basically trying to transition from chemical pesticides into a space that was more of a balanced approach. It was not about the elimination of the chemical pesticide, but a drastic reduction, in order to take into account the effect that these products may have on the environment, on our health and try to balance that with something else.
That has been a key driver. But now, of course, with the war in Ukraine the challenge we have with certain amount of food (along with) the understanding as well in Europe, that is taking place, that it’s okay to think about eliminating something that is being used today. But it’s not okay not to try to replace that with something that could really help the growers, because worst case scenario, we eliminate 50% of the chemical pesticides and then we end up by our growers, not being competitive enough with the U.S. growers or with the rest of the world. And we’re going to import massively our food from different other places where the regulations are going to be different as well. The worst-case scenario could be a complete destruction of the agricultural system in Europe and the reliance on other regions that would be absolutely unacceptable.
ABG: Can we get to the point where biological product can completely replace synthetic products?
PS: Do I believe today that in the next let’s say, couple of decades during my lifetime. We will – more than that – let’s say, during the next 50 years, to put that into context, do I believe that we will be able to eliminate completely the chemical pesticides? I think no, no, no, and that’s not the purpose. The chemistry will make some breakthrough evolution in their innovation system that will allow them to select for better products as well with less impact on the environment. That’s one element. But also, we will be able to equilibrate the need for these products and to be able to use them only when required, which is not the case right now. So, a complete, different view, and moving into an agriculture that is not just using, because you are used to do that, or because you are protecting your crops, but by making sure that you use something that is at the right time, and with the right amount, which is today, maybe not the case everywhere.
There is a drive that is a political drive in Europe. But you can find that to your point in what’s happening in the U.S. right now, where both the EPA, together with the political system, are taking into account the Endangered Species Act, and as such, reconsidering certain products — pesticide, and others, that have been used for a long time in order to go that direction. We need to be more conscious about the impact that these products have on the environment and maybe also on consumers as the top of the food value chain. We are the ones that are accumulating all that is being used in our food system. For me, what it shows is that beating the U.S. In other regions or in Europe, there is one direction.
The direction is all about going to use less and to be less dependent on the use of chemical based pesticide moving forward and being able to find alternatives. That’s a direction that is not going to move. And that’s more and more people are being concerned, us as consumers and the industry is really trying to move the needle towards more sustainable practices in agriculture.
ABG: What are the challenges to wider adoption of biological solutions?
PS: The price is a good one to start with. Usually, whatever you do when you start something new. And Tesla was a great example of that. Chemistry has been around for more than 100 years, and if you look at the production methods of chemistry going into India, China, and so on. It’s hard to compete with something that is so well oiled and established for centuries.
So, whatever you do, you’re going to face these challenges, anyway. So, you have to price at the right level. But also, if you want to displace something at a price that is attractive for the growers; you bring something different. That’s what we try to do in terms of at Biotalys in terms of offering Evoca (the company’s first protein-based biofungicide, for fruit and vegetable from fungal diseases), which is waiting EPA approval at a price that would be competitive with what we aim to replace.
A lot is always about efficacy, and that’s the number one thing. Growers have, since after World War II have been used to use chemistries to increase production levels in terms of the volume of calories that can be created in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
This has been driven mostly by chemistries and then by traits a little bit later at the end of the last century.
Now, we have been spoiled by the fact that chemistries are killing everything. And we have to realize that if you have that chemistry has the potential to be extremely effective. And if you remember the herbicides that were used and at the time of the war as well, that is amazing products, but ultimately have incredible negative impact on the environment, as well. We have to realize that at the time that was normal, and we have also decreased the amount of chemical pesticide that we use all the time, which we have to realize, but they are so effective that growers, when it’s being proposed today with a solution that might be working differently because it’s a biological solution, it might be based on life like microbials, it might be based on not killing, but repulsing like putting away with insecticide that are pheromones. So that is a different mentality as well. So, imagine you’ve been working with your iPhone and calculating whatever you needed on your iPhone and doing all what you want. You want it for generations and generations. And all of a sudden someone comes with a calculus to you and says, ‘this is your next tool to be able to work,’ because that’s basically what it can feel like. It’s a step back versus: ‘But I was using this product. They were working really well.’ So, what is the counter value that you make? It’s not just about the effectiveness; it’s about when you use your product and what your product brings to you.
Of course, if you enter into the race for yield, and the growers looking at it: ‘Sorry, this product is not giving me the yield that I want.’ So, what do you offer to the growers in order for them to be able to transition from one product to the other assuming the price is competitive. That’s a little bit of the idea that we have been really, really spoiled to use a tool chemistry that has been working right well, and so far, so far, we have not always offered to the growers solutions that work the same way, and with the same, let’s say, absence of headache for them in terms of thinking what they are doing in terms of strain.
ABG: How is the biological market changing to meet growers’ needs?
PS: We look at microbials, pheromones, plant extracts. These are the mainstream molecules and products today in the biocontrol segment that have been around for many years. All the companies we know – the major ag players and the major distributors, they have their bronze. Everybody’s selling a bacillus of some kind. Everybody’s selling a kind of a pheromone or is connected to a pheromone. So that’s becoming more and more mainstream.
Now, what we are doing at Biotalys, and what some other companies are doing with every (product) called biotech in that sector where we talk about proteins, peptides, enzymes, RNA and others, for example, this is the next generation. And these products are amazing because they have the potential to truly replace the chemistries and displace them or work together with them in the same way.
When I look at our proteins from Biotalys, we have demonstrated that they are biodegradable. They have no impact on the environment, which is, of course, the number one thing, but also they can be extremely competitive with existing product, and not at the end of the season, not to say ‘Okay, now I’m saved, and everything is fine in my grapes, for example, for botrytis, and I can use a biocontrol. No, no, that’s not it. We replace. And we have demonstrated. We can replace the very first spray at flowering, and basically out compete the chemical integrated pest management program there that that was put in place. There is this mindset change as well is that if you can do better if you can really compete head-to-head with the chemistry from an efficacy standpoint that the growers really see that, which is the new generation, the second generation of products that are coming. I think that will help the growers’ adoption and quite dramatically.
ABG: When will Biotalys’ new product come to market?
PS: When you pave the way especially with EPA, they’ve been really working with us, and we’ve been working with them for a long time now to be exposed to something that has never been seen in a given industry. Our protein is completely new for them, so they indeed look at that from that novelty standpoint. But also, the EPA has got some challenges in terms of the resources that they have, access to, which is another government issue that we can’t resolve from Belgium, but we also try to be as connected with them as possible, and as plain with them, because we are facing the same challenges altogether.
It’s an industry-wide challenge, and the same applies here in Europe. I suspect that within the next decade we will see these products, and we will see them really having an impact on the industry that is going to be sizable. You know it’s not. It’s not small size today. And we say, we always say, Yeah, it’s not much. Last year, the overall crop input protection business was around $70 billion. It was a special year because everything went up. But we know since the beginning of the year, and the challenges that the majors have, it will settle, go down a little bit. But out of $70 billion you would have, let’s say, $4 billion that would be biocontrol in that segment. I’m not talking about biostimulants and so on. That is outside of the crop protection segment there. You see the ramp up there, where in the next few years, with the existing solution, it is for seem to be at around $7.5 billion. So, ramping up much faster than the chemistries.
But imagine that you can all of a sudden, also in that in this next decade, give to the growers really effective solutions. Then the ramp up is going to be much steeper. And that’s what we expect to be able to create is this trust in this product. And the clear visibility on the added value for the growers not at the end of the season, type of spraying, when I don’t care much about what I’m doing, because what I just want is not to spray chemistry too close to my harvest, because I know that I will be penalized by the downstream, whatever. That’s the mindset change that we need to get to.
ABG: How do the EU and U.S. differ when it comes to biological controls?
PS: When we are asked as a small company, ‘Why are you going to the U.S. to basically serve the U.S. growers with your fantastic innovation first?’
First, and we respond to the European, we say, ‘Look, the regulation here in Europe, the process today is not fit to support a rapid regulation for the products, the like of what we have.’ We need to go through the hoops and bumps.
Ideally, we would get the approval of the U.S. having started the dossier exactly at the same time at the end of 2020, beginning of 2021, we would get normally, around this time, EPA approval. And we still have to wait until 2025 to get European approval.
Knowing that we are a small company, and we are all based on innovation, not yet on revenue, because we are basically developing our platform towards that, it’s about time for the European community, for example, to take to take care, as I said, really the action to adapt our regulatory path to be faster because we will lose market share. We will lose momentum if it takes you 10 years to get regulatory approval. Who can survive 10 years as a small organization into a regulatory process like we see. So that’s a little bit the position. It’s politically driven mostly, today. We need to change and accelerate that. At the same time regulation is absolutely necessary for us to do a good job and to and to protect the land and the growers that are using our product. In that space, it’s absolutely necessary. But it has to be adapted to the type of solutions that you bring.
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