Efforts to capture and store CO2 from the atmosphere to combat climate change are the order of the day. One of the lines being pursued by several ventures around the world is the use of microorganisms in agriculture to capture and fix carbon from the atmosphere.

Among them, the following stand out Andes (Andes), a California-based company whose CEO and co-founder is Chilean Gonzalo Fuenzalida. There is also the Australian company Loam Bio and the Israeli Groundworks Bio. These companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years and are focused on increasing the agricultural area using their solutions.

In the case of Andes -whose financing rounds have included companies such as Bayer, Yamaha Motors and Voyager VC-, microorganisms are used that combine with seeds that grow with plant roots and accelerate the capture of CO2 and its conversion into minerals. The company has developed a methodology to measure the carbon captured and certify it so that these captures can be sold on the carbon certificate market. The company applied its solution to 30,000 hectares of crops in the United States during 2023.

Loam Bio, on the other hand, has implemented a treatment for seeds, where, through the roots it generates, it allows the development of beneficial fungi networks that accelerate the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere and its fixation in soils, also improving their performance. The company is using its technology on 100,000 hectares in Australia.

Groundworks has developed an inoculation technology to enable the growth of mycorrhizae - fungal and plant root symbioses - that used to occur naturally, but have been disappearing with the use of modern farming techniques.

Grounworks' system allows the recovery of these microorganisms and improves the yield and quality of the soil, allowing the effective capture of CO2 from the atmosphere. At the end of last year, the company obtained the approval of one of its products for commercialization in China, Argentina and South Africa, markets that join the agricultural powers where they are already used, such as Brazil, the United States and India.