BioIQ

Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies

BioIQ

Climate adaptation technology that generates climate resilient crops, enhances crop yields and reduces dependency on chemical fertilizers.

Seattle, Washington, USA

Ghana

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

Climate induced crop failures and food insecurity. Most African countries are facing climate stress caused crop failures that lead to large-scale food shortages, mass-starvation, and political instability. Farmers are already realizing climate impacts on crop production. For example, one of the worlds staple crops, rice, is sensitive to elevated nighttime temperatures. For every degree above 24°C, rice loses 10% of its yield potential. Many regions globally are experiencing unprecedentedly high nighttime temperatures of 30°C or more. These elevated temperatures disrupt flower fertilization and subsequent yield. The ability of BioIQ to lower internal plant temperature is likely the mechanism behind the 30-200% yield increases reported by 296 Ghanian farmers for rice, maize, soybean, groundnut, cowpea, millet in our 2024 on-farm testing, even in regions suffering from long term drought and heat. Similar results were documented in 2025 by 1000 Ghanian farmers on 24 crop species including vegetables, root crops and tree crops. This initiative will provide climate-impacted farmers with novel, easy-to-use, technology to adapt crops to climate stress, and salty or low nutrient soils. Preventing an inevitable collapse of African food security would alter the path of starvation and hopefully prevent subsequent political instability, armed conflict, and human migrations.

Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies (AST) scientists discovered that native plants thriving in high-stress habitats are adapted to stress via symbiotic associations with microscopic fungi, known as fungal endophytes living inside plants (www.adsymtech.com/press--publications). Based on this discovery, we developed BioEnsure, a complex mixture of fungal endophytes that alter plant gene expression patterns to adapt crops to drought, heat, and salt stress. This allows crop plants to thrive under very harsh conditions. BioEnsure also increases plant nutrient use efficiency, allowing plants to use less fertilizer. This motivated the development of BioTango, a complex mixture of bacteria that provide key nutrients to plants, and works in synergy with BioEnsure. BioIQ is the combination of BioEnsure and BioTango; together they adapt plants to climate stress, poor-quality soils, and reduces their need for synthetic fertilizers by 50%. BioIQ is among the few affordable and scalable technologies available that can alter the course of food security for the billion people that are currently impacted by climate change on the African continent.

Our primary target population is small landholding farmers, with farm sizes less that 2 hectares of land. Small, landholder farms constitute 80% of all Ghanian farms. Small, landholding farmers undertake rain-fed cultivation and typically lack the equipment, resources and inputs required for efficient and productive farming. In addition, most small landholders live in remote locations that are not well served by government or NGO assistance programs and are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on crop production. AST has developed a powder version of BioIQ specifically for small landholders. The powder has been designed for ease-of-use and temperature tolerance during transport and storage. BioIQ impacts the following aspects of small landholder production: 1) Adapts plants to be climate resilient (heat and drought tolerance) 2) Adapts plants to poor soil quality (low fertility and salt tolerance) 3) Increases leaf chlorophyll levels 4) Decreases production costs by reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers by 50% 5) Increases crop yields by 30-200% 6) Increases yield quality (nutrition, shelf life, and appearance) 7) Increases farm revenues 8) Increases food security