The agriculture our planet needs

Pablo Ramírez
Director of Innovation at Horizon

The need to feed a global population of nearly 8 billion while dealing with climate change and dwindling resources poses a huge challenge for the agrifood industry. Agriculture is facing more and more restrictions on the use of plant protection products in an increasingly competitive market.

The European Commission directives under the Farm to Fork strategy set specific targets for the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, cutting application from 30% to 50% by 2030. All of this means farmers have to boost yield while reducing their ecological footprint.

In response to these needs, bioagriculture or organic agriculture is booming, as a system of agricultural practices based on eco-friendly, organic supplies and technology, with two clear goals:

— Sustainability
— Efficiency

In short, it is about getting the most for every cent invested while regenerating our soils and environment.

Bioagriculture puts soil health first and understands the need to strike a balance among its three facets: physical, chemical and biological. The soil is a living system with billions of microorganisms that recycle nutrients and sustain life on our planet. Everything comes from the soil and returns to the soil.

The rhizosphere, the part of the soil closest to the plant roots, is where microorganisms interact with plants, delivering nutrients, water and growth stimulants in a form that is easily assimilated, maintaining a balanced population of pathogenic organisms and carrying out other functions such as fixing atmospheric nitrogen, solubilising insoluble phosphates and drawing cations towards the plant. So, sustainable agriculture has to restore the soil’s mineral and microbial balance and boost levels of organic carbon to get naturally productive soils teeming with biological activity.

This is only possible by incorporating the best of conventional agriculture and organic agriculture with innovation, precision agriculture and biotechnology 🧪. Bioagriculture combines natural practices, such as recycling organic waste and replacing chemical pesticides and fertilisers with organic alternatives, with the development of new products and technologies that help improve soil fertility and biodiversity without eroding or contaminating it.

At Horizon, we are committed to bioagriculture, developing, manufacturing and commercialising natural products (biofertilisers, biostimulants and bionutrients) to help farmers sustainably boost crop health and yield. We’ve just opened a cutting-edge plant to manufacture these products and launched our AKAX® line to market.

Our products, based on science and proven effective, are obtained from the intestinal mucosa of pigs 🐷 using eco-friendly processes that unlock the biological potential of the plant, soil and rhizosphere. This allows us to return part of what we’ve taken to the soil, closing the circle and contributing to the agriculture this planet 🌍🌾 needs.

Thanks for reading us. We’ve chosen this topic for #PlantHealthDay. Until the next post from the #HorizonWorld (Follow us on LinkedIn!).