Bee-delivered ‘natural’ crop product penetrates 83% of U.S. blueberry market
Startup inks 3 deals with Midwest blueberry growers for its EPA-approved precision ag tech
Canadian ag-tech startup, Bee Vectoring Technology (BVT), said Tuesday it has signed three new deals with Michigan blueberry growers to use its “completely natural” precision vectoring agriculture system in the current growing season.
Mississauga, Ontario-based BVT (TSXV: BEE) said its U.S. EPA-approved crop protection system replaces chemical pesticides and wasteful plant protection product spray applications by using commercially grown bumblebees to carry and distribute a “natural” inoculating powder during crop pollination.
Calling itself a “market disruptor” in the $240 billion crop protection and fertilizer market, BVT said the U.S. blueberry market represents about a third of the 270,000 acre global market.
BVT said with the three new deals it recently signed – the first for the company in the Midwest, it has now penetrated 83 percent of the U.S. blueberry market, thanks to “strong momentum” in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest.
“With these new deals, BVT has successfully penetrated key blueberry growing markets throughout the U.S. in a single growing season,” said Ashish Malik, CEO of BVT. “Since EPA approval in September, we have entered the Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Oregon and Washington blueberry markets as well as the Florida strawberry market.”
Currently, BVT has over 65 granted patents, and more than 35 patents pending in all major agricultural countries.
Recent large scale commercial demonstrations on strawberries has shown that the BVT system delivers comparable, if not improved, disease protection over sprayed chemicals as well as significant yield increases.
For example, blueberry crop trials showed:
- 77 percent higher fruit yield compared to the non-treated control
- number of marketable berries per stem 50 percent higher than with chemical standard
- reduction in incidence of Monilinia blight (mummy berry) by 21 percent
VIDEO: Watch how Bee Vectoring Technology works
