Contact Information: Contact Name: David Benito E-mail: david.benito@glaia.co.uk Website: www.glaia.co.uk Funding required: £2,500,000 (£500,000 already secured)
The Solution Glaia commercialises a patented new class of bio stimulant that addresses a gap in the market: products capable of increasing photosynthesis in plants. Enhancing photosynthesis has been described as the holy grail of crop productivity. By using carbon-based nanotechnology, Glaia can overcome this limiting factor, to not only boost crop yields but also do so sustainably by putting an emphasis on green resources – sunlight, water and CO2 – the building blocks of photosynthesis. Glaia commercialises a unique photosynthesis enhancer to address this gap in the market, increase crop yields and make agriculture more sustainable. This unique nano-bio stimulant is based on a sugar-derived material commonly found in nature that unlocks the current bottleneck in agricultural productivity: the inefficiency of crops at utilising sunlight. Glaia’s patented technology helps farmers boost the productivity of their farms without increasing the carbon footprint by increasing yields without increasing nutrient or energy inputs. Unlike most of the bio stimulants in the market, this synthetic bio stimulant has a well-defined composition and known mode of action, correlating directly to the observed yield increases (up to 20%), providing the grower with the required confidence in the product.
Glaia commercialises nanotechnology-based solutions for sustainable agriculture. These innovative, carbon-based products can increase food production while at the same time decrease its carbon footprint. The first commercial product tackles these two problems by enhancing the photosynthesis of crops, which helps plants increase their yields sustainably and farmers become more profitable. The Problem A growing population and an increase in food demand is adding pressure to the agricultural sector that is already experiencing the effects of climate change and stagnant agricultural commodity prices. Crop yields are plateauing because plants are no longer nutrient limited and meeting the increasing demand with the available technologies will cause a tremendous harm to the environment. Global emissions from crop production are over 3.5bn tonnes of CO2e every year. It is estimated that 40% of the nitrogen applied to the fields is not used, leaching into the environment, or being transformed into harmful greenhouse gases. The limiting factor in crop productivity is photosynthesis: the natural process by which plants convert the energy from the sun, together with CO2 and water, into our food. Plants are surprisingly inefficient at photosynthesis with crops usually transforming Enhancing the photosynthetic efficiency of crops allows for sustainable yield increases by putting an emphasis on natural and abundant resources such as solar energy, CO2 and water rather than on environmentally harmful inputs such as fertilisers.
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