[Disclosure: AgFunderNews’ parent company AgFunder is an investor in OlsAro.]
OlsAro—a Swedish startup developing salt tolerant wheat and other crops resilient to environmental stressors—is conducting large-scale field trials with partners in India and multiple other markets as it gets closer to commercialization.
The firm, which is on a mission to “enable farming on otherwise unfarmable land,” says it can help partners deliver meaningful increases in yield vs elite local varieties in saline soil.
While a fair amount of work has gone into research on salt tolerant rice, there are few options in wheat, claims OlsAro CEO Elén Faxö, who is also working on crops that are more heat-tolerant and have improved nitrogen efficiency, which would reduce dependence on synthetic fertilizers.
She adds: “We’re seeing a steady reduction in the amount of cultivatable land due to soil salinity, which can mean lower yields or at worst no growth at all. This higher salinity is in part due to flooding and cyclones, but also due to the lack of freshwater, where farmers have been irrigating with saline water or brackish water, so it’s a huge addressable market.
“On the startup side you have companies that are working with salinity and rice, but we don’t really see them working with salinity and wheat, so that makes us unique.”
Salt tolerant partnership in India with DCM Shriram
In India, OlsAro has been working with partners including DCM Shriram, a leading agricultural, chemicals, and building materials group and the largest player in proprietary wheat seeds in India.
DCM Shriram Vice President Anand Shriram tells AgFunderNews: “India has about 6.75 million hectares of salt-affected soils. Out of this about 1.71 million hectares is saline soil; 3.79 million hectares is alkaline soil, and 1.25 million hectares is coastal saline soils.
“Due to inefficient drainage systems, associated waterlogging, increasing use of unsustainable management practices, and the expansion of areas irrigated with poor-quality groundwater, soil salinity in India is increasing at a rate of 10% per year. It is estimated that by 2050, around half of the arable land could become salt-affected.
“Though wheat cultivation in salinity affected soils is not large,” he says, DCM Shriram is working on salt tolerant wheat “to increase the yield potential of farmers in certain areas so that their income increases, by providing them with more suitable wheat varieties.”
DCM Shriram has been testing in-house wheat lines to test their resilience towards multiple biotic and abiotic stressors, adds Shriram. “This includes testing in the salinity affected areas as well.
“We first began interacting with OlsAro in the beginning of 2024, and after a few virtual meetings, both companies developed the confidence to partner for salt tolerant wheat in India.
“OlsAro shared data from trials of its salt tolerant wheat varieties in Bangladesh. We found the data quite convincing due to yield superiority over the common wheat varieties cultivated there,” he adds.
“We received three OlsAro salt tolerant wheat lines in November 24. We used two of our proprietary wheat varieties and one variety released by Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) as local checks to estimate the effect of salinity on comparative yields.
“We conducted trials of OlsAro salt tolerant wheat lines in Rabi [the winter cropping season] 2024-25. Three locations were selected (two in Uttar Pradesh and one in Bihar) based on the required degree of salinity after soil analysis.”
He adds: “We now have results of one year of trials from these three locations. The results are encouraging, so we want to do some more trials and test for another season.
“The yield and tolerance to area specific diseases are the prerequisites for adoption. New products with additional traits such as salinity or drought tolerance will be fast adopted only if they are equal or higher yielding than the varieties in current use, say in areas with saline soil.”
Two development paths depending on regulatory landscape
According to Faxö, OlsAro has two development paths that can be deployed depending on the regulatory landscape in markets it is targeting.
The first is what she calls a “population-based approach” using EMS mutagenesis, “where we treat the seeds with a specific substance to introduce very high genetic diversity. We can then commercialize varieties with desired traits from screening in our populations.
“The advantage is that it’s non-GM globally, so we can target any market without being considered GM.”
OlsAro’s second development path is gene editing, she says.
“For trait discovery, we use AI to screen down on the SNPs [single nucleotide polymorphisms or genetic variations] of interest for our target traits, then the next step is to go for integrating the trait via gene editing or our population based approach in local elite varieties. The strength of our AI is that we have plenty of proprietary data that we can feed the AI system with, in addition to open-source data.”
Underpinning this is a “database of genomic data, field data, transcriptomics and so on. And then we also have AI that enables us to speed development that we are continuously building on,” says Faxö.
She adds: “When we speak about a population-based approach, it’s both forward and reverse, which means that we both do phenotypic screening (looking at the physical traits or characteristics of a plant) from within the populations to find the variety or the line of interest with a certain trait. We also do genotypic screening (looking at the DNA of the plant) based on AI-derived traits we have identified from within the population for variety development.”
Field trials in multiple markets
She adds: “We’ve done field trials in multiple geographies, and it seems like our seeds are well adapted also for different conditions. However, to further open additional markets and improve performance we’re also looking at gene editing and our population based approach since this would enable us to work with local [wheat] varieties that are already adapted for local conditions.”
She added: “We have a commercial partner in Bangladesh, Lal Teer Seed, and we aim to reach the market there by 2027, as we’re in the second year of DUS (Distinctness, Uniformity, Stability) testing.
“But we’re also in dialog with multiple seed companies in several other markets with over ten potential partners in markets including Argentina, Pakistan, Kenya, and Turkey.
“In Australia we work with a research partner and we are also in dialog with seed companies there, but it takes a while as the seeds first have to go into quarantine.”
The initial focus has been on salt tolerant wheat but OlsAro has also started trialing heat tolerant wheat in some markets. Ideally, these traits can be combined in the same wheat variety, she says.
“For salt tolerance, the target is [for crops to perform at] 4-8 and even up to 10 dS/m (deciSiemens per meter). So that’s a high salinity level which inhibits much growth.”
Patient capital
To date, OlsAro has raised €3 million ($3.5 million) and is currently in the middle of a new raise with “many exciting dialogs” ongoing, says Faxö, who says investors are seeing reports on rising salinity in coastal areas and understand this is a problem that is only going to get worse.
“But we don’t just speak about salinity, more generally we’re talking about climate adaptation, drought tolerance, and heat tolerance.. We are able to move a lot faster than many others within our space, but we are still not a SaaS company, so we are keen on finding the right investors to join our journey.”
According to Faxö: “Early indications from trials in Kenya and Pakistan show we have performed well compared to local elites with our lines, but we are also looking at introgressing traits into local elite varieties that are more adapted to local conditions.”
In Bangladesh, where OlsAro already has a commercial agreement in place, it will “basically license the right to commercialize our germplasm, and then everything else—multiplying the seeds, logistics, storage, marketing, sales—will be in the hands of seed company partners,” she says.
“We’re not going to build huge operations capacities at OlsAro. That’s going to be in the hands of our partners. We’re going to be a deep tech R&D resource. We are going to have business development resources in house, but only targeting large seed company partners, so we are pretty efficient.”
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