“Today, biostimulants are key to achieving maximum quality and productivity”

Enric Bonet Villoria is the CEO of Biovert SL, a consolidated company in the field of biostimulants and advanced plant nutrition that has a long history of more than 30 years.

Awarded and recognized on numerous occasions, the brand of this company, Manvert, has a catalog of effective, innovative and low environmental impact products that guarantee a profitable agricultural production both quantitatively and qualitatively, with the utmost respect for the environment. It is, as the head of the company says, a clear commitment to excellence in productive agriculture,

The biostimulants sector is experiencing a boom in recent years. Do you still have a long way to go? Are they the future?

They have a long way to go. Biostimulants are an additional tool for farmers to improve the production and quality of their crops and therefore have a great present and future in those countries where there is demand for both variables. Nowadays, they are essential products to achieve maximum quality and productivity.

Do you think that farmers are aware of the enormous advantages of using biostimulants in their crops? That is, is there an exhaustive knowledge about this particular sector or, on the contrary, do you think there is still some ignorance?

In many cases, biostimulants are the great unknown within production, since all producers know that they must feed their crops with the necessary nutrients and, on the other hand, protect them from pathogens and pests. Once this objective is reached, which is the basics, the following is to maximize the genetic potential of the crop by applying specific biostimulants at different stages of the cycle. It is an increasingly essential step to achieve excellence in production and quality.

The European Fertilizer Regulation that will regulate the sector and will come into force in a few years has already been published. What will this new step mean in a sector with as much potential as fertilizers and biostimulants? Will the sector win? In what sense?

The new Regulation is something that the sector demands for years. Now it is a reality. The cost of registering a biostimulant in the European market remains to be known, since there are still many gaps pending to be resolved in the requirements of placing a fertilizer product on the European market. With a positive vision, this will help to boost and clarify the knowledge of this type of products at all levels of the food chain, which is a process that I think is very necessary.

His company, Biovert (manufacturer of manvert products) is already a veteran entity in the sector. He has been developing biotechnology for productive agriculture for more than 30 years. How do you not only maintain, but grow in this sector?

The secret is to be in contact with the market, detect what the market demands of a company like ours, invest in the development of products that really are a solution for the farmer’s problems, and put them in the market with due support of field trials and compliance with the regulatory requirements of each country. When you perform these steps safely, it is normal for you to succeed.

“To maximize the genetic potential of the crop, you have to apply specific biostimulants at different stages of the cycle”

Your company has products with a lot of tradition … One of them, manvert foliplus, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. It should not be easy to keep a product 20 years in the market with sales that do not stop growing. What is the formula for this success?

You have to go ahead and anticipate the needs of the producers, focusing on the different solutions and opportunities in which the product fits. And recognize that sometimes the product does not fit at a certain time, therefore that product does not “burn”, and despite not generating additional sales leaves the user satisfied, which repeats again.

Do you dare to advance what kind of products (in your sector) the farmer will need in the coming years? That is, what will be the most demanded products of the productive agriculture sector from now on? What will the market ask for?

It is a difficult question to answer. There are many product lines that are appearing as a solution to different problems of the field and crops. Nowadays, the main problem facing the farmer is the demand in the reduction of the use of phytosanitary products of chemical origin and therefore it is an important source of new products, although not biostimulants, since a product that has phytosanitary activity should not be considered biostimulant. This is a line that from our vision is not well imitated in the sector.

On the other hand, products that mitigate stress situations generated by sudden temperature changes, or products that regulate water regimes within the plant have a great future.

Another important line of products will be that which allows the recovery of soils that are impoverished by intensive and continuous agricultural practice, and that maximize the use of nutrients applied to the soil.

“We do not launch our products until they have passed a slow but totally necessary process”

And … Do the lines of Manvert’s R&D department point there? What are the lines in which your research and development department is working?

Indeed, we are working on almost all these lines, although the results are not expected to translate into market launches until 2022. We have a process of creating new products that requires a lot of work and we do not register an item until it has passed the tests required by our R&D department. It is a slow process, but that provides a totally necessary security.

And the manvert challenges for 2020? Which are?

Maintaining the confidence of the users of our solutions is a constant and necessary challenge. Also increase both the number of users and the number of available solutions, as well as consolidate our presence in the markets in which we are present and expand to new ones. Growth is important, of course, but so is maintaining the trust of our current customers. And both the first and the second are important challenges at the same level.