B.C. company gets nearly $2 million for biodegradable fertilizer coating

By Your Southwest Media Group

A British Columbia company recently received almost $2 million to keep improving a biodegradable coating for fertilizer.

Lucent BioSciences Inc., based in Burnaby, will "continue to develop its sustainable fertilizer technology to protect soil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease microplastics in the environment," a federal Agriculture Department statement said.

"Canadian companies are developing innovative solutions that can help make agriculture more sustainable and resilient," Heath MacDonald, the minister, said in the statement.

Microplastics cover most controlled-release nitrogen fertilizers but staff with Lucent Bio will use a biodegradable coating, made from surplus starch, "which can help plants use nitrogen more efficiently," the statement said.

The "coating technology is designed to release nitrogen closer to when plants need it most during their growth cycle," the statement explained.

The grant of over $1.95 million comes from the research and innovation section of the government's agricultural clean technology program.

The money allows the company "the opportunity to take the technology we have been developing and move it into a new area with significant potential in agriculture," said Farah Nour, Lucent's co-founder and chief science officer. The company's biodegradable biopolymer technology will help reduce "nutrient losses to the environment" and the funding "allows us to improve this work faster," Nour said.

Officials have approved 535 projects worth about $314 million under the agricultural clean technology program, the statement said.