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The living fertilizer company

Feeding the world sustainably

The living fertilizer company


Feeding the world sustainably

The problem

Today we make commercial fertilizer with fossil fuels, releasing over a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions every year—about the same as all of the cars in the United Statesalong with other issues like:

our situation

Fertilizer is the foundation of global agriculture — without it we could not grow enough food to support humanity.

national security

Supply chain challenges and geopolitical conflicts put fertilizer importing countries at risk.

global inequality

Those who need it most cannot afford fertilizer, contributing to food insecurity - and prices keep rising.

Energy costs

Commercial fertilizer manufacturing runs at massive temperatures and pressures, using ~2% of global energy.

pollution

Excess fertilizer runs off into rivers, lakes, and oceans - threatening aquatic life and destroying biodiversity.

The solution

We engineer naturally occurring microbes to become sustainable fertilizer producing factories directly on the roots of plants.

produce

We produce microbes and formulate them into a powder. Each ounce of powder contains billions of sleeping microbes.

Apply

Farmers rehydrate microbes to awaken them and apply at crop sowing.

Grow

Microbes first proliferate alongside germinating plants. More microbes, more nitrogen!

feed

Through a proprietary mechanism, microbes then switch on nitrogen fertilizer production.

The problem

Today we make commercial fertilizer with fossil fuels, releasing over a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions every year—about the same as all of the cars in the United Statesalong with other issues like:

our situation

Fertilizer is the foundation of global agriculture — without it we could not grow enough food to support humanity.

national security

Supply chain challenges and geopolitical conflicts put fertilizer importing countries at risk.

global inequality

Those who need it most cannot afford fertilizer, contributing to food insecurity - and prices keep rising.

Energy costs

Commercial fertilizer manufacturing runs at massive temperatures and pressures, using ~2% of global energy.

pollution

Excess fertilizer runs off into rivers, lakes, and oceans - threatening aquatic life and destroying biodiversity.

The solution

We engineer naturally occurring microbes to become sustainable fertilizer producing factories directly on the roots of plants.

produce

We produce microbes and formulate them into a powder. Each ounce of powder contains billions of sleeping microbes.

Apply

Farmers rehydrate microbes to awaken them and apply at crop sowing.

Grow

Microbes first proliferate alongside germinating plants. More microbes, more nitrogen!

feed

Through a proprietary mechanism, microbes then switch on nitrogen fertilizer production.

The problem

Today we make commercial fertilizer with fossil fuels, releasing over a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions every year—about the same as all of the cars in the United Statesalong with other issues like:

our situation

Fertilizer is the foundation of global agriculture — without it we could not grow enough food to support humanity.

national security

Supply chain challenges and geopolitical conflicts put fertilizer importing countries at risk.

global inequality

Those who need it most cannot afford fertilizer, contributing to food insecurity - and prices keep rising.

Energy costs

Commercial fertilizer manufacturing runs at massive temperatures and pressures, using ~2% of global energy.

pollution

Excess fertilizer runs off into rivers, lakes, and oceans - threatening aquatic life and destroying biodiversity.

The solution

We engineer naturally occurring microbes to become sustainable fertilizer producing factories directly on the roots of plants.

produce

We produce microbes and formulate them into a powder. Each ounce of powder contains billions of sleeping microbes.

Apply

Farmers rehydrate microbes to awaken them and apply at crop sowing.

Grow

Microbes first proliferate alongside germinating plants. More microbes, more nitrogen!

feed

Through a proprietary mechanism, microbes then switch on nitrogen fertilizer production.

The problem

Today we make commercial fertilizer with fossil fuels, releasing over a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions every year—about the same as all of the cars in the United Statesalong with other issues like:

our situation

Fertilizer is the foundation of global agriculture — without it we could not grow enough food to support humanity.

national security

Supply chain challenges and geopolitical conflicts put fertilizer importing countries at risk.

global inequality

Those who need it most cannot afford fertilizer, contributing to food insecurity - and prices keep rising.

Energy costs

Commercial fertilizer manufacturing runs at massive temperatures and pressures, using ~2% of global energy.

pollution

Excess fertilizer runs off into rivers, lakes, and oceans - threatening aquatic life and destroying biodiversity.

The solution

We engineer naturally occurring microbes to become sustainable fertilizer producing factories directly on the roots of plants.

produce

We produce microbes and formulate them into a powder. Each ounce of powder contains billions of sleeping microbes.

Apply

Farmers rehydrate microbes to awaken them and apply at crop sowing.

Grow

Microbes first proliferate alongside germinating plants. More microbes, more nitrogen!

feed

Through a proprietary mechanism, microbes then switch on nitrogen fertilizer production.

our situation

Fertilizer is the foundation of global agriculture — without it we could not grow enough food to support humanity.

The problem

Today we make commercial fertilizer with fossil fuels, releasing over a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions every year—about the same as all of the cars in the United Statesalong with other issues like:

pollution

Excess fertilizer runs off into rivers, lakes, and oceans - threatening aquatic life and destroying biodiversity.

Energy costs

Commercial fertilizer manufacturing runs at massive temperatures and pressures, using ~2% of global energy.

national security

Supply chain challenges and geopolitical conflicts put fertilizer importing countries at risk.

global inequality

Those who need it most cannot afford fertilizer, contributing to food insecurity - and prices keep rising.

The solution

We engineer naturally occurring microbes to become sustainable fertilizer producing factories directly on the roots of plants.

1.produce

We produce microbes and formulate them into a powder. Each ounce of powder contains billions of sleeping microbes.

2.Apply

Farmers rehydrate microbes to awaken them and apply at crop sowing.

3.Grow

Microbes first proliferate alongside germinating plants. More microbes, more nitrogen!

4.feed

Through a proprietary mechanism, microbes then switch on nitrogen fertilizer production.

Led by Tim Schnabel, the Switch Bioworks team is made up of almost exclusively scientists and bioengineers, all focused on the engineering grand challenge of creating a sustainable fertilizer.

Meet the team →

It’s time to Switch