Israeli agritech company Lavie Bio will collaborate with Swiss Syngenta to develop a new bio-insecticide. The partnership aims to combine Lavie Bio's technology with Syngenta's expertise in crop protection.
Lavie Bio, based in Rehovot, Israel, focuses primarily on developing biological solutions for controlling insect pests in crops. Syngenta, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, is a major player in the field of crop protection and seed technology.
The collaboration allows both companies to expand their portfolio of products to include bio-insecticides, as concerns about the use of chemicals and pesticides in agriculture and food production have increased in recent years.
The aim of the collaboration is to develop new bio-insecticides that are effective against harmful insect pests, while also being safe for the environment, sparing beneficial insects and meeting increasingly stringent environmental food safety requirements.
The collaboration between Lavie Bio and Syngenta comes at a time when the demand for biological crop protection products is rapidly increasing. Consumers and regulators worldwide are showing a growing preference for sustainable agricultural practices and reducing the use of chemical pesticides.
Plans have been presented in the European Union for halving the use of fertilizer in agriculture and - eventually - a ban on the use of chemical pesticides. There is no agreement on this yet between the 27 EU countries and between the political groups in the European Parliament. Partly for this reason, there is increasing pressure to allow environmentally and climate-friendly ('natural, green') products.
According to the World Food Organization FAO, insects pose a major challenge to plants and crops worldwide. Damage caused costs the global economy an estimated $70 billion per year. Experts predict that such losses will worsen as global warming increases the spread of insects and resistance to currently available insecticides increases.
The collaboration between Lavie Bio and Syngenta is therefore closely monitored by stakeholders in the agricultural sector and is seen as a new development that paves the way for sustainable crop protection.