Agbioscience

Joaquín Alarcón spent his career in industrial enzymes and chemical bio-products watching good green chemistry ideas die on the way to a plant. Catalyxx, the company he founded in 2017 and now leads as CEO, is built to avoid that fate. It takes plant-based alcohol — in the U.S., largely corn ethanol — and turns it into the same molecules the chemical industry has made from oil for a century. Same performance, same specifications, no reformulation required. 

This week on Agbioscience, Joaquín walks Eric Pfeiffer through a decade of work on the innovation platform behind it, from a demo facility in Seville to the 120 million euro commercial plant now rising in Sines, Portugal — the first production of its kind at scale. Along the way: why the Consider Corn Challenge win in 2021 and years of Indiana Corn Marketing Council support for the GrenOl renewable fuel project matter, what Indiana’s corn and ethanol base could offer Catalyxx, and what still has to change in policy, infrastructure and capital markets before bio-based chemicals scale in the U.S. the way they are starting to in Europe, 

Highlights include:  

• Plant alcohol, not petroleum: Catalyxx turns plant-based alcohol into the same molecules the chemical industry has made from oil for a century — what that means for agbioscience, and what drew Joaquín to the innovation platform for the last decade of his career. 
• Founding to first plant: Founded in 2017 and now building its first commercial plant — the moment he knew it would work, and what it actually took to get a first plant off the ground. 
• Why most green chemistry dies: Years in industrial enzymes and chemical bio-products taught him why a few green chemistry ideas reach a plant and most never do — and how Catalyxx was built differently on purpose. 
• No reformulation required: Most sustainable chemicals ask a manufacturer to alter a process, a specification, even a supply chain. Catalyxx’s product is identical to what they already buy — and that is the point. 
• Volatility as a business model: Working from ethanol, which in the U.S. largely means corn ethanol — building on a commodity that moves constantly, with policy behind it that moves too. How the business stays profitable through that volatility, and how much of the model depends on ethanol staying cheap. 
• The Indiana relationships: How the Consider Corn Challenge win in 2021 and the Indiana Corn Marketing Council’s multi-year backing for the GrenOl renewable fuel project started — and what that Indiana support has enabled. 
• Indiana as a plant site: Indiana is among the largest corn and ethanol producing states, with an active conversation about moving more of what it grows into higher-value products. What stands out about Indiana as a potential site for Catalyxx. 
• Seville to Sines: From a demo facility in Seville to a 120 million euro plant in Sines — the first commercial-scale production of its kind. What had to be proven at demo scale before anyone would commit capital, why Sines was the right location, and what remains between a signed project and commercial production. 
• The sequencing: U.S. and Brazilian plants follow the European one — the sequencing logic, and what has to be true before a U.S. plant makes sense. 
• The scaling bottleneck: The single biggest thing that has to change — policy, infrastructure, or capital markets — for bio-based chemicals to scale in the U.S. the way they are beginning to in Europe. 
• What Catalyxx becomes: Five years out: a licensor of technology, an operator of plants, or a chemical company in its own right — and what has him most excited about what’s ahead. 

The AgriNovus team has returned from Minneapolis having attended the Reuters Transform Food + Ag USA 2026, a convening of industry leaders across the entire value chain. We get into our team takeaways on where food and ag is headed, resilience in the food system and empathy and understanding for farmers. Christy presented at the event, and we give a sneak peek into an upcoming research report on Food is Health as a durable market for the future.

We also get into upcoming events! Our research will be the topic of discussion at our final Quadrant of 2026. Register for the free networking event in Indianapolis here.

Velocity is an agbioscience accelerator focused in three critical areas: bioinnovation, farmer-focused innovation and food is health. Throughout the five-month program, 12 startups have been developing and refining solutions to defined challenges and now they will compete for the grand prize. Join us for Velocity Pitch Day on November 18 at Launch Fishers to connect with entrepreneurs, innovators, industry and academia to hear about the future of agbioscience innovation and watch as the participating teams take the stage to share their solutions. A total of $75,000 in prize money will be awarded to the three track winners to help the founders move their companies forward. Register for that free event here.

The agbiosciences are being asked to answer harder questions faster than ever — and at the same time, public trust in institutions and expertise is thinning. This week we are joined by Chris Boomsma, CEO of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), for a conversation about what it actually takes to produce science that farmers, researchers, companies and policymakers can all rely on. We dig into how CAST's peer-reviewed, expert-led process works and why that rigor matters when decisions carry real economic, environmental and food-system consequences. Chris also weighs in on the funding and political pressures reshaping academic research, the tension between the industry's need for speed and science's need for care and where misinformation is most likely to take hold. It's a candid look at how credible voices earn trust — and what organizations like CAST will have to do more boldly to keep it. 

Highlights include:  

• What CAST actually is — the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology's mission and the convening role it plays across the agriculture ecosystem. 
• Where science is needed most — the biggest issues facing ag right now, and where credible, evidence-based information is most urgently missing. 
• Inside the process — what peer-reviewed, expert-led report development really looks like, and why the vetting is the point. 
• Why peer review matters in ag — the economic, environmental, and food-system stakes behind decisions made by farmers, researchers, companies, and policymakers. 
• Trust in a skeptical era — how CAST reaches audiences who don't automatically trust science or formal research bodies. 
• Rigor meets accessibility — balancing accuracy with usefulness for producers, industry leaders, and decision-makers. 
• A research sector in transition — how shifting funding models, political pressures, and new expectations for public impact are changing agricultural science. 
• Speed vs. care — whether a gap is opening between how fast the industry needs answers and how long careful science takes, and how CAST is responding. 
• Misinformation's soft spots — the ag topics most vulnerable to oversimplification, and where trusted scientific voices matter most. 
• The cost of moving too fast — the risk to agribusiness leaders, policymakers, and startups that skip peer-reviewed grounding. 
• What's next — what CAST and similar organizations must do differently — or more boldly — to protect scientific credibility and keep agriculture moving forward. 

It started with forty acres of sagebrush in Utah County, bought in 1979 so a father's sons could turn it into a sod farm and earn money for college. Decades later, one of those sons heard a friend was using nanotechnology to improve a dry-cleaning business and wondered whether the same idea could do something for a farm. The trials that followed beat industry standards — and the sod farm became an agtech company. 

That company is Nano-Yield, and its co-founder and CEO, Clark Bell, joins us this week on Agbioscience. Nano-Yield builds a nanoparticle delivery system that helps plants take up the fertilizer and crop protection already going on the field — more from existing inputs rather than more inputs, and it's earned the company a 2026 Stevie Award for agricultural innovation, an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist nod, and a No. 2,539 ranking on the 2026 Inc. 5000 on 127% three-year growth. 

Highlights include: 

• The core problem Nano-Yield is solving for farmers — and why this is the right moment for the technology 
• Why "more efficiency from existing inputs" is landing now instead of "add another product" 
• Nanotechnology in plain English: what a grower actually needs to understand about how it improves productivity 
• What makes the science genuinely different from traditional fertilizer enhancement and other crop input technologies 
• From a technical standpoint, what's happening inside the plant that allows the approach to improve performance and efficiency 
• What growers have said as they integrated Nano-Yield into their operations 
• The USDA backing tied to innovative domestic fertilizer production and business growth — how that support accelerates expansion and validates the opportunity 
• Scaling without weakening the science or muddying the value proposition for the farmer 
• The measurable results customers are seeing today in yield, nutrient efficiency, crop health and consistency 
• A customer story that captures the impact of the technology 
• Balancing innovation talk with what farmers care about most: return on investment and operational simplicity 
• What the Stevie Award and EY finalist honors mean — and what they say about the company's maturity 
• What will define success for Nano-Yield over the next year: adoption, farmer outcomes, partnerships, or something else 

Verility CEO Liane Hart shares how their innovative AI-powered mobile diagnostic platform is increasing efficiency + accuracy, revolutionizing livestock reproduction. She dives into her entrepreneurial journey, innovation at the intersection of human + animal health and how the Verility team is uniquely positioned to advance this bioinnovation.

Picture a kitchen arena where 1,500 cooks from more than 40 countries have all won their way in — no open registrations, no fast track, just Golden Tickets earned at hundreds of qualifiers across the year. They cook in rounds, plate blind, and wait on the score. That's the World Food Championships, and it lands at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis October 15–18 for year two of a three-year run. 

It's also the event Mike McCloud founded in 2012, and the term he coined for it — Food Sport — has spent fourteen years becoming its own category. This week on Agbioscience, Mike joins us to talk about what happens when a live culinary tournament turns into something brands can test against, and what that means for agriculture on the other end of the plate. 

Highlights include: 

• What "Food Sport" actually is — and how a live, multi-round tournament differs from a cooking show or a traditional culinary competition 
• How WFC has evolved since 2012, and what has surprised Mike most across fourteen years 
• Why you can't just sign up: inside the qualifying process, the 800+ sanctioned events, and the Golden Tickets that set the level of the field 
• WFC as a product innovation lab — putting a brand's ingredient into the hands of hundreds of accomplished competitors, including required-ingredient final rounds like the Chef Category 
• What a brand actually has to bring to an ingredient integration — and what "we tried it at WFC" gives a product team that a focus group or a test kitchen can't 
• Stories of competitors using an ingredient in ways that changed how a brand thought about its own product 
• Building a faster, more effective feedback loop between producers, manufacturers and innovators and the people who cook for a living 
• What happens after the four days — the chef-brand relationships that outlast the event 
• Indianapolis as home for three years, with 2026 as year two: why this market works and what the first two years have proven 
• How a live culinary event intersects with Indiana's $70B+ agbioscience sector — production agriculture, food processing, animal health, plant science, agtech, food-is-health and bioinnovation — in ways people wouldn't expect 
• Whether WFC can be a catalyst for moving Indiana corn, soy, pork, poultry, dairy and tomatoes downstream into value-added food and nutrition — and what that would take 
• Mike's vision for WFC's next decade 

ClearLeaf CSO and Co-Founder Agustin Buchert shares the company's journey from medical products to agricultural innovation focusing on plant health solutions. He also discusses expansion into US markets and the exciting opportunity to join Indiana's thriving agbioscience ecosystem

Rachael Spiegel, Partner at Faegre Drinker, sits at the intersection of food, agriculture and law — a place where regulatory complexity, supply chain risk and the realities of feeding people all collide. She joins Agbioscience to unpack how companies are navigating an era of rising recalls, what drives the decisions made in the first hours of a crisis and how leaders can build resilience across the value chain. 

Highlights include:  

• The path into food and ag law — how Rachael's background shaped her read on the food system and the challenges it faces  
• The view from Faegre Drinker — the hurdles food and ag companies are hitting right now, and how those issues have evolved 
• Prevention, crisis and regulation — how her time actually splits between helping companies head off problems, responding when they hit, and steering through a complex regulatory system, plus what that work reveals about where the food system is strongest and most vulnerable 
• How risk moves through the value chain — what she sees from working across the chain that others may miss 
• The recall trend — whether the upward swing reflects growing risk, better detection, stronger oversight, or all of the above 
• What's actually driving recalls — supply chain complexity, improved testing, traceability, regulatory pressure, litigation risk, consumer expectations, or something else entirely 
• Inside the decision-making — what companies and the public often misunderstand about how recall calls get made in the moment 
• The real cost of a recall — beyond the immediate financial hit, where companies feel it most, and how short-term damage differs from long-term fallout • Partners across the value chain — how recalls are changing the way companies engage with suppliers, customers and everyone in between 
• Looking ahead — how food and ag leaders should be working now to reduce risk and build resilience 

September marked the end of a new era and the beginning of new chapters for Indiana's agbioscience ecosystem. Christy Wright, president and CEO of AgriNovus, joins VP Libby Fritz in studio to highlight the big news of the month: 

• Corteva launches new era of innovation as standalone company -- alongside Vylor
• IBI Ag chooses Indiana for its North American HQ
• Givaudan adds Indiana facility that will generate 250 new jobs
• Fallow Ag launches out of The Pantheon in Vincennes -- a big win for AgriNovus' Velocity
• The Pantheon gets a new leader
• AgriNovus announces its 2026-27 class of Field Atlas Ambassadors
• Applications are open for mentors and mentees to participate in Field Atlas AMP (Agbioscience Mentorship Program)

Welcome to Directionally Speaking, a narrative series that highlights the innovators bringing solutions to market through AgriNovus' Velocity accelerator. This week, AgriNovus Senior Director of Innovation Tim Dixon sits down with Raha Saremi, founder and CEO of Ecoatex, and gets into how her company transforms agriculture byproducts into sustainable, bio-based materials for packaging, fibers and more. She discusses the innovative process, her journey from scientist to entrepreneur and her experience in the Velocity bioinnovation cohort.

Learn more about Raha and Ecoatex at agrinovusindiana.com/velocity