Exclusive: Lux Research's Sara Olson On Opportunities In Green Agriculture

On Benzinga's PreMarket Prep broadcast, host Joel Elconin interviewed Sara Olson, PhD, a Research Analyst at Lux Research. Lux Research is an independent technology and growth scouting company. Lux assists clients to find new business opportunities for emerging technology in physical and life sciences in 17 different sectors. The company services large multinational companies, most of which are Innovation 1000 and Fortune 500 companies.

Elconin began the interview with the focus on greener agricultural technology. Olson emphasized the public's more vocal response on these technologies, including biopesticides and no-till farming. She also noted the push from the "two-pronged attack on the synthetic areas where you have rising costs to develop the synthetic chemistries and then you have really intense regulation governing their approval for market."

The analyst reported on the emerging trend in the greener agricultural technology sector, noting that anyone who is not ready to innovate could be hurt. Olson added that companies facing the greatest danger include the "big six" companies, such as

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. In assessing this risk, she continued that the big six are "making the most waves" in spending over $2.5 billion to acquire or license biotech technologies over the past two years.

With biopesticides approaching on market share, Olson broke down the numbers in this sector. In defining biopesticides as "bio-based or bio-sourced chemicals that can act as pesticides," Olson reported that biopesticides make up only 3-3.5 percent of the global pesticide market, just under $2 billion. Lux Research estimates that this number will grow to $4.5 billion in the next ten years, representing seven percent of the global pesticide market.