The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
Back to the Future with Ben Burgess
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
Resistance 2024, the 9th in a series of conferences, is brought to you by Rothamsted Research to showcase the latest situational analysis and research on pesticide resistance in the UK and globally.
Sessions will include Molecular Mechanisms and Genomics, Evolution and Selection and Monitoring, Field Studies and IPM, and world-leading experts from academia, industry, and government will share knowledge spanning pesticide resistance in insects, pathogens, and weeds.
With such diverse speakers, we likewise expect to attract a diverse audience. The Conference Committee will take every opportunity to ensure that a wide range of individuals’ interests will be represented. This is always a popular meeting and spaces will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.
The registration fee of £415.00 (including VAT) will include attendance for the three days of the conference, poster sessions, refreshments and lunch each day, an evening reception buffet on the first evening, a conference dinner on the second evening, and a programme book and access to online abstracts.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
In September 2023, a significant legal challenge brought by Corteva against Inari Agriculture has thrust the issue of seed deposits into the spotlight, and affords a useful opportunity to remind ourselves on the legal requirements surrounding the deposit of biological material to support a patent application.
Corteva alleges that Inari has infringed its patents by obtaining Corteva’s patented seeds, illegally importing them into Europe, genetically editing the seeds, and seeking patent protection in the US for the modified traits. Corteva further claims that Inari have used a third party to misappropriate Corteva’s seeds from the America Type Culture Collection (a recognised institute for the deposit of biological material such as seeds and microorganisms).
The role of biological deposits in patent law
Patent law grants a monopoly for an invention in exchange for disclosing the nature of the invention. For this reason, it is a requirement that an invention is described in a patent application in a manner which enables it to be reproduced. For some biological inventions, a written description is not enough to allow a third party to reproduce the invention, and access to biological material, such as seeds or microorganisms, may be necessary to satisfy the legal requirement of enablement.
The Bupadest Treaty governs the deposit of such material, allowing for a single biological deposit to be made, which is recognised by other Treaty members through reciprocal arrangements. Many jurisdictions, including Europe, Japan, and Korea, require that the deposit is made before the filing date. This requirement ensures that the deposit information is provided in the published patent application, as part of the teaching of how to practice the invention. In Europe at least, a priority document must contain an enabling disclosure of the invention, making it crucial to include deposit information in the first filing. In contrast, in the US, a deposit can be filed much later, up to a date which is set in the Notice of Allowance, posing a challenge for US applicants to meet overseas requirements.
Patent applications must include the deposit date and the deposit accession number. A provisional deposit date and accession number will be provided by a Deposit Authority upon initial receipt of the deposit, but if after testing the sample proves not to be viable and a new sample needs to be supplied, the deposit date may change. In order to ensure that the correct deposit date and accession number are included in a patent application, starting the deposit process well in advance of a priority filing is advisable to ensure that the viability test can be completed before the filing date, and that the information in the patent application will be correct.
Third party access to deposits
A key issue in the Corteva v Inari lawsuit pertains to the issue of third party access to the deposited seeds.
Inari has responded to the allegations, by arguing that the patented seeds deposited with the ATCC are available to the public without restriction after a patent grants. They contend that by depositing the seeds, Corteva authorised their availability and transportation of the seeds for commercial purposes.
Under the Budapest Treaty, an International Deposit Authority is obliged to keep a deposit for the later of 30 years from the initial deposit, or 5 years from the last request for a sample. During this time, any natural or legal person can request a sample of the deposit, and the International Deposit Authority must furnish it to them provided that they have rights to the sample in accordance with patent law which governs the patent or patent application referring to that sample.
For patent applications before the EPO, access to deposited material can be restricted to a nominated independent expert, provided that a request for restricted access is made within a specified time limit.
However, this restriction expires upon grant, upon which date, if the deposited material falls within the scope of the granted claims it may then be accessed by any third party, but in accordance with patent law it may only be used for experimental purposes only. Similar provisions apply in the US and Japan. Inari have defended their use of the seed deposits, stating in a court filing “In exchange for the grant of these patents, Corteva assured the public that the deposits would be available to the public without restriction when the patents issued….Corteva now seeks to renege on that promise.”
Conclusions
The Corteva v Inari case highlights that there may be risks associated with deposit of biological material. There are particular risks in a situation where a patent has been granted but the deposited material does not fall within the scope of the granted claims. If an invention can be described in a reproducible manner without the need for a biological deposit, then this may be preferable, provided that the requirements for enablement are clearly met.
This case underscores the complexity of patenting biological material and the critical importance of understanding the requirements of International deposit requirements to safeguard intellectual property.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
Providing sub-Saharan smallholders with a cost-effective alternative to expensive artificial nitrogen fertiliser has come a step closer for British agri-biotech company Legume Technology, following the award of a grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).
The Nottinghamshire company, which has been working on microbial biofertilisers for more than twenty years, will receive £2.15m from the foundation and the UK government.
The project will help develop biofertiliser technology as an affordable, accessible agricultural input for small-scale agricultural producers (SSPs) in Africa. The biofertiliser could increase smallholder yields in a sustainable, environmentally friendly manner and improve outcomes for millions of families across the region.
“These farmers face many challenges,” says Dr Bruce Knight, co-founder and managing director of Legume Technology, “of which by far the most significant is access to nitrogen fertilisers.
“The absence of affordable fertiliser options significantly impacts agricultural productivity and livelihoods,” he says. “Synthetic fertiliser is not only too expensive for many of these families, but increased use would also bring its own environmental problems.”
Legume Technology’s work focuses on natural microbes – bacteria and fungi – that have a unique ability to capture the nitrogen that makes up nearly 80% of the air we breathe, making it available to crops. Farmers in the developed world have been using these ‘biological nitrogen-fixers’ (BNFs) for years, but generally they only work on a specific crop type, the ‘legume’ family that includes peas, beans and pulses.
The project will find out how much nitrogen these microbes can fix from the atmosphere, when used in non-legume cereal crops like maize.
“The grant from the Gates Foundation and the UK government will allow us to embark on a new programme of research to identify microbes that can work with non-legume staple crops such as maize, millets, sorghum and cassava,” explains Dr Knight.
As part of the project, Legume Technology will work with research institutes, specialist microbe ‘banks’, innovation centres and universities around the world to collect and assess 50 BNF bacterial strains that are already known to have nitrogen-fixation effects.
The University of Nottingham, Legume Technology’s long-time research partner, will screen these strains in high-tech testing chambers that use ‘marked’ nitrogen to identify the best-performing strains and understand their potential. The top ten strains will then be independently reviewed by the James Hutton Institute, one of the UK’s most-respected agricultural science specialists. Legume Technology will also partner with the Centre for Process Innovation, a government-funded ‘innovation catalyst’ that helps companies develop biotechnology products.
Field-scale trials will follow, to validate the laboratory findings and to check that the microbes perform as expected.
“The second part of the programme is no less exciting,” says Dr Knight. “The foundation’s grant will also allow us to develop specialist packaging for these SSP products.
“Because BNF products are live, quality packaging is very important to maintain shelf life and quality once they’ve left the factory.”
Typically, products are shipped in sterilised packaging containing enough product to treat the seed for tens of hectares. But the average sub-Saharan smallholding is less than ½ a hectare in size, 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 SSPs,” Dr Knight points out. “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.
“There’s also lack of awareness around the existence of these biofertiliser products, and that they work,” Dr Knight adds. “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, build and installation of a new packaging line for SSP products at Legume Technology’s factory in East Bridgford. Dr Knight likens the proposed pack design to a crisp packet. “It’s 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.”
“It’s a very simple proposition, but a complete win-win project. We’re delighted with this grant and the opportunities it gives us to improve agriculture’s productivity and sustainability.”
Farmers in the developed world have been using ‘biological nitrogen-fixers’ (BNFs) for years, but generally they work only on a specific crop type, the ‘legume’ family that includes peas, beans and pulses. The new project will try to identify microbes that work in staple crops such as maize, above.
Legume Technology co-founder Dr Bruce Knight, with the ‘Micropack’ packaging that will be developed for African smallholders.
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
Hutchinsons goes Back to the Future…
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
B-Hive Innovations goes Back to the Future…
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
PheroSyn, an innovative agricultural technology company specializing in the development of insect pheromones for sustainable crop protection, announced today that it has secured investment from Tall Grass Ventures (TGV), a leading Canadian venture capital firm focused on early-stage agri-food tech startups. This funding will accelerate PheroSyn’s mission to replace harmful chemical pesticides with more sustainable alternatives.
A spin-out from the renowned chemical ecology research group at Rothamsted Research in the UK, PheroSyn is committed to providing farmers and growers with effective and sustainable pest management solutions. The company’s groundbreaking pheromone-based products offer a safer and more targeted approach to pest management, minimizing the environmental impact of traditional pesticides.
“We are delighted to partner with a firm that shares our vision for a more sustainable future in agriculture,” said Dr. Mary Ellis, Co-founder and CEO of PheroSyn. “This investment is a significant step towards advancing the growth of our company, and will enable us to expand our product portfolio, accelerate research and development, and reach a wider market with our innovative solutions. Ultimately, farmers and growers across the world are facing renewed pressures with fewer products in their toolbox, and this support will allow us to scale and expand our solutions to help protect crops while also preserving the earth’s biodiversity.”
PheroSyn’s proprietary pheromone production methods allow for the creation of cost-effective and environmentally friendly pest management products. By harnessing the power of natural insect communication systems, the company’s novel products offer a targeted and effective way to manage pests, while preserving biodiversity and minimizing the risk of resistance development.
“Quality of founders is at the top of the list in the venture world, and we found Mary and Daniel excellent to work with, very down to earth, and extremely motivated to succeed in this endeavour.” said Chris Edwards, Managing Partner at Tall Grass Ventures. “Insect pheromones are not easy to synthesize accurately, and so PheroSyn’s unique technological approach coupled with a market waiting for a solution, really made us stop and take notice.”
About Tall Grass Ventures
Tall Grass Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early-stage companies that are reimagining the future of agriculture and food. With a team of experienced investors and operators, TGV partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build category-defining businesses. To learn more visit www.tallgrass.vc
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
Mosses, liverworts, ferns and algae may offer an exciting new research frontier in the global challenge of protecting crops from the threat of disease.
These non-flowering plants are often regarded as unsophisticated compared to their flowering relatives – which include major crops.
However, new research carried out by the John Innes Centre has found that non-flowering bryophytes, and mosses in particular, contain sophisticated immune receptor repertoires.
“The non-vascular and non-flowering bryophytes are often thought of as simple predecessors of flowering plants, but we find that mosses in particular have an expanded set of immune receptors that are perhaps the most complex amongst plants,” said Dr Phil Carella, a group leader at the John Innes Centre and author of the study.
Biotechnological techniques revealed that NLR immune receptor domains which protect plants against pathogens are transferable between flowering and non-flowering plants.
Dr Carella added, “The exciting part of this study is that the diverse immunity found in non-flowering plants like mosses are transferable, so they offer us a source of new resistance genes against pathogens.”
The discovery opens exciting new possibilities for engineering immunity in major crops which are facing a growing threat from emerging and rapidly evolving pathogens exacerbated by climate change.
Plants have developed leucine-rich-repeat (NLR) immune receptors to detect pathogens over millions of years. The NLRs of flowering plants is a well-studied subject, but much less is known about the form and function of receptors from divergent lineages of non-flowering, non-vascular bryophytes.
Bryophytes diverged from flowering plants over 500 million years ago, and knowledge of their immune systems is limited. Using a combination of genetic and computational tools, the team focused on the N-terminal domain of NLR immune receptors that encode the biochemical basis of plant immunity.
They found that there was remarkable structural and functional similarity between immune receptor domains across diverse plant lineages, even though the genetic sequences of these domains was highly variable.
By using transient expression techniques, they transferred immune receptor genes obtained from non-flowering plants like the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha into a flowering plant Nicotiana benthamiana, a type of dwarf tobacco.
Diverse immune receptor domains activated strong immune responses when transiently expressed in flowering plants. The reverse was also true, as researchers found they could functionally transfer an immune domain from flowering plants into to non-flowering plants.
The fact that these domains are transferable and function across plant lineages is a breakthrough in understanding and offers practical applications for crop protection.
“This means that we can use non-flowering plants like mosses or liverworts as a source of new resistance genes against crop pathogens,” explained Dr Carella, “We show that we can indeed leverage the vast evolutionary diversity of immune receptors from across the entirety of the plant kingdom. So, our scope to engineer immunity is therefore a lot larger than we originally thought.”
The team is also exploring the evolutionary novelties encoded in bryophytes as a source of gene discovery that can be used to protect crops against diseases.
Future experiments will seek to identify pathogen molecules that trigger immunity across diverse plants.
The researchers will also try to understand how the components of the immune receptor come together to activate an immune response.
The research also offers biological insight, said Dr Carella, “It is often considered that flowering plants are the pinnacle of evolution. But our study shows that there is likely a complexity of immune receptor biochemistries in non-flowering plants, which could offer a new reservoir for immunity if we can transfer these into crops.”
The N-terminal domains of NLR immune receptors exhibit structural and functional similarities across plant lineages, appears in the July issue of The Plant Cell.
Image Caption – Marchantia polymorpha liverwort colony growing in an urban environment. Here both male and female umbrella-like reproductive structures can be seen
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
AgRecruit goes Back to the Future
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
Niab goes Back to the Future…
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
Back to the Future with Delta – T Devices
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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.
This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.
Post Overview
This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.
Ben Burgess
Rothamsted Research
HGF Limited
Legume Technology
Hutchinsons
B-hive Innovations Ltd
PheroSyn Ltd
John Innes Centre
Anthology
Niab
Delta-T Devices Ltd
Better Origin
