By Lebogang Mashala
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK government have awarded a £2,15 million (about R50 million) grant to British agri-biotech company Legume Technology to assist in the development of affordable biofertiliser technology for small-scale farmers in Africa.
Dr Bruce Knight, co-founder and managing director of Legume, said the grant signifies progress towards providing cost-effective alternatives to expensive artificial nitrogen fertilisers for sub-Saharan smallholders.
Knight said his company had been researching microbial biofertilisers for more than 20 years and expressed optimism about the potential to increase smallholder yields sustainably and improve outcomes for millions of families.
“Many farmers are dealing with various challenges, and the most significant is the lack of access to nitrogen fertilizers,” said Knight. “The unavailability of affordable fertiliser options greatly affects agricultural productivity and people’s livelihoods. Synthetic fertiliser is not only too costly for many of these families, but its increased use would also bring about environmental issues.”
Knight said Legume focuses on natural microbes such as bacteria and fungi that can capture nitrogen from the air and make it available to crops. Farmers in the developed world have been using these biological nitrogen-fixers (BNFs) for years, he said, but generally they work only on the legume family that includes peas, beans and pulses.
The project aims to determine how much nitrogen these microbes can fix from the atmosphere when used in non-legume cereal crops such as maize. “The grant from the Gates Foundation and the UK government will enable us to start a new research programme to identify microbes that can work with non-legume staple crops such as maize, millets, sorghum and cassava,” Knight added.
As part of the project, Legume will collaborate with research institutes, specialist microbe “banks”, innovation centres and universities worldwide to collect and assess bacterial strains that have nitrogen-fixation effects.
Knight said the University of Nottingham, Legume’s longstanding research partner, will screen these strains in hi-tech testing chambers that use “marked” nitrogen to identify the best-performing strains and understand their potential.
The top 10 strains will then be independently reviewed by the James Hutton Institute, one of the UK’s most respected agricultural science specialists. Legume will also partner with the Centre for Process Innovation, which helps companies develop biotechnology products.
Field-scale trials will follow, according to Knight, to validate the laboratory findings and to check that the microbes perform as expected.
“The second part of the programme is no less exciting. The foundation’s grant will also allow us to develop specialist packaging for these small-scale farmers’ products. Because BNF products are live, quality packaging is very important to maintain shelf life and quality once they’ve left the factory,” he said.
According to him, these products are typically shipped in sterilised packaging containing enough product to treat the seed for tens of hectares. But the average sub-Saharan smallholding is less than 5 000m², making these packs too expensive and unwieldy for distribution in Africa. Domestically produced biofertilisers are available but provenance, quality and performance are usually sub-standard.
“It’s another major constraint for small-scale farmers. Availability of high-quality crop inputs, in low-volume packaging, is a huge limitation on realising the potential of biofertiliser products in many African countries,” Knight said.
“The project includes in-country commercialisation trials to validate the product, demonstrate its reliability and show the gross benefits of yield and quality. We can then investigate logistics and registrations, with a view to developing commercial partnerships.”
The grant from the Gates Foundation and the UK government will also enable the design, construction and installation of a new packaging line for small-scale farmers’ products at Legume’s factory. Knight said the proposed pack design is easily portable and highly affordable, while keeping the contents fresh and free from contamination.
“Yet within that small bag, the Micropack, 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, without any environmental side-effects,” he said.
