AgBiTech
AgBiTech is a global leader in agriculture technology that helps to create healthy food systems to sustain our families and our planet for the 21st century. We are a rapidly growing and transformative crop protection company focusing on science based biological insect protection. Our products are harnessing natural insect pathogens to control major pests. Farmers around the world are benefitting from reliable, sustainable and cost-effective tools to prevent crop loss, and the products are highly valuable within regenerative agricultural systems.
Company details
Find locations served, office locations
- Business Type:
- Manufacturer
- Industry Type:
- Crop Cultivation
- Market Focus:
- Globally (various continents)
- Year Founded:
- 2000
About Us
AgBiTech is a global leader and innovator in biological pest controls.
Since 2000, AgBiTech has been delivering commercial products that help make farming more profitable and sustainable. In 2015, it joined the portfolio of Paine Schwartz Partners, a private equity firm specializing in sustainable food chain investing around the world.
Founded by a farmer and a scientist. AgBiTech is deeply rooted on being an innovative company. We always put the farmer first. You could say we are obsessive in our commitment to the farmer, field support, and continuously bringing to market solutions that can easily be adopted by farmers in each local market.
Our proven products deliver cost savings to farmers. They are also reliable, year-after-year. That’s because we combine farming knowledge with cutting-edge science and proprietary technology to develop and manufacture each of our products.
Our commitment to the grower means we continually strive to meet demand for our products. We are able to quickly respond to dynamic changes to pest pressure and chemical insecticide resistance development in any global market.
AgBiTech's state of the art production plant, laboratory and global headquarters is located in Fort Worth, Texas. Global development activities continue to expand in Australia, USA and Brazil.
Our purpose-built manufacturing plants in Australia and the USA are world class. They use state-of-the-art technology and equipment. We designed the plant specifically to give us the capacity to meet global market demands efficiently and at a food grade standard.
Some of our products require us to produce insect viruses in vivo. This involves mass rearing insects and infecting larvae to produce the virus. For this reason, our manufacturing plant is highly specialised and utilises proprietary technology we developed.
We use a multi-step production process, which is automated wherever possible. Our technicians are continually refining and testing each production step to maximise quality and output.
Having high levels of quality control means we consistently produce good quality, high concentration products.
Company Values
Purpose
Breaking new grounds as a world leader in making bioinsecticides an effective mainstream solution, with strong performance and solid growth.
Why
We deeply care about the future of growers, consumers and our people. We strongly believe that a more balanced approach to farming is needed for viable agriculture..
How
By uniquely producing high quality bioinsecticides at scale with leading scientific expertise, focused and passionate people, deep field knowledge and strong grower connections
Innovation
Nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPVs) are naturally occurring, highly effective bioinsecticides against a number of important insect pests. NPV-based insecticides promise a potent and environmentally friendly alternative to chemical insecticides. Some NPVs are capable of killing a large number of different caterpillar species, but most NPVs are highly specific and only target a limited number of closely related caterpillar species. These bioinsecticides are extremely safe and do not harm people, wildlife, or beneficial insects.
The active constituent of NPVs is Occlusion Bodies (OBs). OBs are virus particles that are protected inside a protein matrix. When caterpillars feed on plants treated with OBs (right figure) for that specific insect species they become infected with the virus. Alkaline conditions in the insect’s digestive tract cause the OB protein matrix to dissolve, releasing virus particles that penetrate the cells lining the midgut. Once inside the caterpillar the virus is able to multiply and invade almost every cell in the insect. Subsequently the virus causes the cells of the insect to rupture, killing the caterpillar and releasing an NPV-loaded liquid.
This NPV liquid can be spread around the crop by other insects and/or during rainfall or overhead irrigation. Healthy caterpillars that feed on this liquid will become infected and die. In this manner, a crop can become “inoculated” with NPV to help provide protection against subsequent pest infestation.
NPVs in Integrated Pest Management
NPVs can provide effective control of caterpillars with no impact on beneficial species in the crop. This means that natural predators and parasites in the crop are able to provide ongoing suppression of pests after NPV application. The use of less selective insecticides, while providing good initial knockdown control of caterpillars, can cause subsequent flaring of pests due to the removal of their natural enemies. This is a particularly important consideration in the first half of the season and in crops prone to pests normally kept in check by predation and parasitism.
NPVs in Resistance Management
Some caterpillar species have developed resistance to a wide range of chemical insecticides and to genetically-modified (GM) crops. NPVs are able to control caterpillar populations that have developed resistance to synthetic chemistry and GM crops. They are also a valuable rotational product and mixing partner in resistance management. Current scientific evidence shows that the chance of resistance development to NPVs is extremely low. This means that NPVs can be used throughout the season; early for use in integrated pest management and later as a resistance break or mixing partner with synthetic insecticides.
NPVs in Residue Management
NPVs are non-toxic and non-hazardous which means that farmers can re-enter their fields within a few hours of spraying. Moreover, NPVs degrade in the natural ecological environment thus leaving no residues on crops enabling farmers to manage pests right up until harvest without having to worry about pre-harvest internals or challenges of residues on crops.
