2024 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Pivot Bio and its nitrogen-delivering microbes [MIT Tech Review]

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Pivot Bio is using genetically edited microbes to deliver just the right amount of nitrogen to crops, cutting climate emissions without reducing agricultural yields.

The development of synthetic fertilizer was one of the great achievements of the last century, providing an abundant source of nitrogen that boosted crop yields and helped feed a growing global population. 

But the product is also a climate and environmental disaster. The production process releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and after it’s applied to fields it releases nitrous oxide, a far more powerful greenhouse gas. Synthetic fertilizer contributes about 5% of worldwide climate emissions and pollutes groundwater, lakes, and rivers.

Pivot Bio, a biotechnology company based in Berkeley, California, is harnessing microbes to deliver a usable form of nitrogen directly to the roots of crops, reducing the amount of synthetic fertilizer farmers need to use and the pollution that comes with it.

Nitrogen is an essential ingredient for photosynthesis, but most plants can’t directly absorb it from the air. Fertilizer manufacturers help them along by breaking down the strong triple bonds between nitrogen molecules and combining those molecules with hydrogen to form ammonia. After it’s applied in fields, much of the fertilizer turns into ammonium and nitrate, nitrogen-rich compounds that plants can take up and use to grow.

Certain bacteria and other microorganisms in soil pull off a similar trick naturally, if not as consistently. Pivot is putting a modern twist on this natural process, genetically engineering select microbes to increase the amount of nitrogen they deliver to the roots of plants over the growing season.

More and more farmers are putting it to use in their fields. The company’s products were applied to 5 million acres last year, up from 1 million two years earlier. 

Key indicators

• Industry: Food and agriculture 
• Founded: 2011
• Headquarters: Berkeley, California, USA
• Notable fact: Pivot Bio says its products can replace 40 pounds of synthetic fertilizer per acre. US corn farmers generally apply about 150 to 220 pounds of fertilizer per acre every year, depending on the variety and hoped-for yield.

Potential for impact

Pivot sells the microbes as a seed coating or as a liquid that farmers can apply in furrows at the time of planting. 

The company says the current version of its main product, designed for corn, can replace about 25% of the synthetic fertilizer normally used, without reducing crop output. The company has also developed nitrogen-delivering microbes tailored for wheat, sorghum, and other small grains, all selling for around or below the price of traditional fertilizer. Pivot adds that farmers have applied its products to more than 10 million acres (if you count repeated uses), nearly all in the US so far.

Pivot says that while generating a million tons of ammonia as fertilizer produces 2.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, manufacturing the microbes needed to deliver a million tons of nitrogen in the field produces only about 35,000 tons of emissions. The company estimates that its customers have cut emissions by the equivalent of more than 900,000 tons since the start of 2022. About 78% of that reduction occurred just last year, though the company says some of that increase was due to improved data collection.

A handful of academic studies have backed up the company’s claims that its products can reduce fertilizer use and emissions without lowering crop yields.

Caveats

Some farmers have reported mixed results in their fields, and Pivot’s products don’t necessarily increase yields over what’s possible with standard fertilizer use. That isn’t necessary for the company to make the case that it can help the climate—but it would make Pivot an easier sell to farmers.

Many are loath to cut down their use of synthetic fertilizer, a tried-and-true product, unless new policies require them to do so or pollution-cutting products promise to boost productivity as well.

The other obvious challenge with Pivot’s approach is that it’s not a complete solution to synthetic fertilizer pollution, since it can replace only a fraction of that fertilizer.

Next steps

But it’s a big fraction in an industry that’s notoriously challenging to clean up, and one that’s set to grow.

Chris Abbott, the company’s CEO, stresses that Pivot can save farmers money, since its products are cost competitive with synthetic fertilizer but will more reliably deliver nitrogen that actually translates to plant growth.

The company expects that its next generation of microbes, scheduled to be ready for the 2026 US planting season, will be 25% more effective at generating nitrogen at the roots of crops. With future improvements, Abbott believes, the products will eventually be capable of replacing as much as half the synthetic fertilizer in fields, with crop yields the same or better. 

If Pivot nears that goal and continues to win over farmers, it could begin to meaningfully reduce one of agriculture’s biggest sources of climate pollution.

Explore the 2024 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch.