Santa Fe specialists develop ecological inputs for agricultural production | They make fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides with vegetable raw material

2023-08-22 04:31:11

Researchers from Reconquista, Santa Fe province, set up a factory that generates inputs for agricultural production from plant and animal extracts. Through natural methods that do not require the use of chemicals, the objective is to replace traditional products that are applied to crops with a system that does not harm the environment or human health.

Federico Pognant, an agronomist and specialist in agroecology, says: “In this factory we generate bio-inputs, that is, liquid or solid products made with all kinds of vegetable and mineral extracts that, through processes such as fermentation, are applied in production. agricultural”.

The raw materials used by specialists range from eggshells, ground calcined bone and rice husks, to plants such as nettle, horsetail, the fruit of paradise, rue leaf, chili pepper or basil. . Also, they use cow dung, mountain soil, yeast, unpasteurized milk, and minerals such as copper sulfate, sulfur, and wood ash.

With these ingredients they make liquid and solid fertilizers to improve crop growth. They also manufacture insect repellents, insecticides, fungicides (products designed to prevent or eliminate the growth of fungi) and natural inputs to prevent diseases in animal production.

sustainable paradigm

The Reconquista Biofactory, which depends on the National Institute of Family, Peasant and Indigenous Agriculture and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), carries out agroecology, a paradigm that proposes sustainable rural development through economically viable agriculture that takes care of the natural resources of the environment.

“We work with small producers from farming families who have ancestral knowledge and knowledge about the use of plants. Many times active ingredients are used to repel insects, nourish crops or cure an animal disease”, explains Pognante.

The factory staff is not only made up of engineers, but also social workers and veterinarians. “Some of us work with plant extracts to generate fertilizers and others with animal extracts to produce antiparasitics and tick killers,” she highlights.

negative impacts

In recent times, the global demand for food has increased and caused the expansion of agricultural activity and, with it, the intensive use of agrochemicals. However, various studies have shown that its excessive use can cause negative impacts on soils, ecosystems and animal health. In addition, in people it can cause poisoning, physiological, behavioral and reproductive disorders.

According to the World Health Organization, more than a thousand products are currently used around the planet to ensure that pests do not damage or destroy food. The toxicity of each depends on its function: for example, insecticides tend to be more toxic to people than herbicides. In turn, the same chemical substance can have different effects in different doses and the consequences vary if it was ingested, inhaled or was in direct contact with the skin.

In Argentina there are more than 400 registered active principles that are used to formulate agrochemicals; some of them are domestically produced and others are imported and reformulated for use. In addition, the country is part of agreements such as the Stockholm and Rotterdam agreements, which aim to mitigate the impact on health and the environment of dangerous chemical products.

A better future

Given this scenario, researchers are looking for alternatives to agrochemicals and the advantages of agroecology are present. In this sense, Pognante details: “Agroecological or organic production aims to have healthy and healthy food, which responds to an increasing demand. The bio-inputs that we generate do not cause damage to the environment, they are not toxic to humans and, by not using chemical products, they have a lower cost”.

Although in the long term the goal is to produce and market these inputs on a large scale, the agronomist explains: “What interests us most today is manufacturing these products to investigate and test their effectiveness. For example, we are exploring how many doses of such an input are necessary, what actions it has or what the expiration date is”.

In addition to functioning as a factory, this space trains students, producers and interested technicians. “We show them the products we manufacture and how they can do it so that they can then replicate it on their farms,” he points out.