Highlights of 2022

for Evoca, both in the U.S. and EU fruits and vegetables markets, as well as in additional geographies, crops and diseases. These results may help reduce the time to develop a commercially a ractive version of Evoca.

OCTBill & Melinda Gates Foundation visit to Biotalys HQ

Vipula Shukla, Senior Program

O icer for Agriculture at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, visits the Biotalys Ghent o ice and labs. She gives an inspiring presentation on the work and strategy of the Foundation in agriculture globally. Our team provides her with more background on our activities in the BioFun-7 program as well as our AGROBODY Foundry platform and capabilities.

Identification of new ways to scale Evoca more cost-efficiently

Our partner Novozymes uncovers new ways to scale production and e iciency that could help Biotalys drive a broader commercial reach

Dec

Establishment of a Scientific Advisory Committee

Biotalys establishes a Scientific Advisory Commi ee (SAC) to support the Company’s continued growth, accelerate product pipeline efforts and deepen scientific partnership initiatives. The SAC brings together leading scientists and industry experts that will meet regularly to provide scientific and industry-specific direction on initiatives tied to their scientific domain, including the research and development platform, fungicides, bactericides, and insecticides.

Global food supply strained

Population growth and climate change are pu ing societies around the world under pressure. The past year, geopolitical conflicts and natural disasters further significantly endangered global food supplies.

Food insecurity on the rise

Today, 345 million people in 82 countries struggle to put food on the table, up from 135 million in 53 countries before Covid-19. Put simply: in just two years the number of people facing acute food insecurity has doubled. Terrible events as the Russian war in Ukraine, the pandemic, and exceptional drought have formed a perfect storm causing high food, energy and fertilizer prices, preventing even more people from feeding themselves decently.1

The UN goal of eliminating all hunger from the world by 2030 thus seems more remote than ever. With only seven years le , action is imperative. More sustainable agriculture and biological alternatives for food and crop protection are critically needed.

Climate change is on top of the world’s agenda

Climate change is a worldwide priority for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and society. At COP27, held in Egypt in November 2022, countries rea irmed their ambition to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. They also reiterated their commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions to global net zero by mid-century. With extreme climate events becoming the norm, COP27 participants stressed the urgency of protecting communities by adapting to their devastating e ects.2

Agriculture plays a crucial part in saving both livelihoods and lives. At COP27, countries set out a 12-month action plan to speed decarbonization in five key areas including agriculture. The goals include a faster shi to sustainable agriculture, boosting food security for billions of people.3 With food production already causing 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions4 and the world’s population swelling, farming needs breakthrough innovations to reduce its environmental and societal impact while improving food safety and quality.

Global food loss and waste

Our planet faces many threats to longevity. The growing population is expected to need over 50% more food by 2050, which would require more farmland amounting to nearly twice the size of India and cause a 275% above-target contribution to agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.5 Yet in the midst of this population explosion, an estimated 30% of all food produced still goes to waste along the food value chain.

The food loss is so dramatic that o icial agencies are throwing all available resources into halting it. In its Sustainable Development Goals 6, the United Nations targets cu ing per capita global food waste in half at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses in production and supply chains, including postharvest, by 2030. This ambitious timetable underscores the global urgency of the food waste issue.

The European Commission commi ed to this UN target in its “Farm to Fork Strategy”.7 It pledged to set a baseline and proposed legally binding targets to reduce food loss and waste across the European Union.

However, about half of the food losses happens during production (in the field) and the first steps of handling and storing (post-harvest), before the food is processed or reaches consumers.8 For fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables, the proportion is even higher. A broad range of pesticides is being employed in the production, storage and handling of fresh produce to protect it against spoilage (fungal diseases) and insects. But to what end?

The answer is not more chemicals. At Biotalys, we believe it is vital to identify and develop novel and safe food protection technologies that can be applied in innovative and di erentiated ways to boost the global food system’s e iciency and sustainability.

Consumers demand safe, healthier, more nutritious food

Consumers are also gaining market power. They are increasingly questioning the use of conventional chemical crop protection products, their potential e ect on human health and biodiversity, and their accumulation in the ecosystem.

This concern has spurred them to demand access to healthy and safe food that is free from pesticide residues and produced with minimal impact on the environment. It has also led many large, global food retailers to impose these standards on their supply chains. While these actions hold out the promise of safer alternatives, they also put additional pressure on growers to deliver high-quality/low pesticide food. Luckily, technological advances and innovators like Biotalys are ready to o er new tools and solutions to answer these intensifying consumer demands and mitigate the pressure on growers globally.

50%

Regulatory evolutions

Over the past two decades, many developed countries have acted to lower the risks and hazards caused by conventional chemical pesticides, leading to a sharp rise in their development and registration costs.

The regulatory landscape’s evolution is particularly significant in the EU, which has banned or severely limited the use of some highly toxic or endocrinedisrupting pesticides and applied strict regulatory standards to pesticide residues. The European Commission’s recent “Farm to Fork” strategy to reduce the overall use and risk of conventional chemical pesticides by 50% by 203013 increases the need for alternative, environmentally responsible, and more e icient solutions and thus favors the accelerated growth of the biocontrol segment.

In the United States, the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act mandated the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to retrospectively review all insecticides applying more stringent safety criteria. The EPA’s specific fasttrack regulations created for biocontrol products promote the development of sustainable alternatives to existing chemical pesticides.