Growing Resilience: How French biotech helps crops save water worldwide

Published connected 14/11/2025 - 15:00 GMT+1 •Updated 16:02

Elicit Plant is simply a French startup that has gained world nickname for helping crops header pinch h2o shortages — a situation that’s becoming captious for farmers worldwide.

The company’s breakthrough started pinch phytosterols. Aymeric Molin, agronomy technologist and Chief Operations Officer astatine Elicit Plant, explains:

“Phytosterols are earthy molecules recovered successful each plants. They thief modulate really easy substances walk done nan plant’s cells, enabling nan works to accommodate to nan different stresses it encounters.”

Elicit Plant’s office usability arsenic some a investigation centre and a testing ground, equipped pinch biology and chemistry labs and a mini accumulation unit. An world squad of scientists useful present to move investigation into applicable solutions that tin beryllium deployed quickly successful nan field.

“We activity connected a wide scope of crops — chiefly maize, soybeans, sunflower and cereals. Our section experiments person shown that treated maize plants usage 20% little h2o connected mean than untreated ones,” says Magdalena Kutnik, Head of Laboratories.

Biostimulants, nan class of products to which Elicit Plant’s innovations belong, first appeared successful nan 1990s. Since 2022, they person been regulated nether European legislation.

“We received 1 of nan first European authorisations, which allows america to administer crossed each EU countries nether nan aforesaid authorisation. It’s an bonzer opportunity,” notes Molin.

As droughts and utmost upwind go much frequent, solutions that thief crops usage h2o efficiently are nary longer optional — they’re essential. Elicit Plant’s activity shows really European agri-biotech tin present some technological invention and a tangible effect successful nan field.