Switch Bioworks has won biosafety approval in Brazil for its engineered nitrogen-fixing microbes. Brazil’s National Technical Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) approved the company’s dossiers. The California-based biotech firm can now move toward field testing in one of the world’s largest agricultural markets.
The technology uses genetic switches. They let the microbes settle on plant roots first and start making nitrogen later. The company calls this growing first and producing second. The design targets an energy trade-off that has long limited biological nitrogen fixation. In lab studies, the switchable microbes fixed about five times more nitrogen on plants than always-on controls.
Conventional nitrogen fertilizer depends on the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. That leaves supply exposed to energy and price shocks. Switch is making nitrogen with biology instead.
The company already has field work elsewhere. In the United States, USDA- and EPA-authorized corn trials are running across six Midwest states. In Kenya, Switch is testing several microbial candidates in smallholder farming systems with local research partners. Brazil would add a third region.
Brazil offers different soils, farm practices and climate. That gives Switch a new setting to test the same genetic-control platform. Complementary growing seasons could also allow extra field-learning cycles each year. The country is also one of the most advanced markets for biological inputs. Based on public information, Switch says its product would be a new category of biofertilizer there. It is an intergeneric genetically engineered microbe designed to live and function in the field.
CEO Tim Schnabel said Brazil combines strong research, commercial scale and farmer adoption in agricultural biologicals. He said each new geography speeds learning and builds the infrastructure needed for global deployment.
