The chance to develop technology that made a difference for impoverished smallholder farmers in Africa drew Tahira Pirzada to North Carolina State University nearly a decade ago, and by all measures, she succeeded.

Today, as a university research scholar and a startup company entrepreneur, she’s pushing the technology further, determined to have an even deeper impact not just in Africa — and not just for farmers working on small acreages — but for any farmer, working at any scale, anywhere in the world.

Pirzada serves as president and chief executive officer of Soteria Formulations. The company creates seed coatings and pelleted granules and works with pesticides manufacturers to enhance their products’ performance. Soteria’s technology allows for the targeted delivery and extended release of both chemical and biological pesticides and fertilizers.

In addition to Pirzada, the company’s founders include Richard Guenther, an NC State retiree with experience in materials science and plant pathology; Charles Opperman, Professor Emeritus of entomology and plant pathology, and Saad Khan, INVISTA Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and an N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative affiliate.

They were all part of the team that used nonprofit funding to develop low-cost, biodegradable seed wraps that have helped farmers in seven countries raise their yields and lower damages from pests.

Their technology laid the groundwork for Soteria, now a member of the N.C. PSI’s Seed2Grow entrepreneurial program. Seed2Grow helps university faculty, students, young alumni and others bring their plant sciences discoveries to the marketplace.

“Being part of NC State and the N.C. PSI has been the best thing that has happened to me as an entrepreneur.
I do not think we would be able to survive without them.”

Pirzada sat down recently to share more about her journey to entrepreneurship, the advantages of Soteria Formulations’ technology and how Seed2Grow is helping the company achieve its goals.

What led you to become ag tech entrepreneur?

My background is in material science, and while I was working on a Ph.D. in Pakistan, I came to NC State as an exchange scholar. Saad was my advisor. I went back, graduated and started teaching as an assistant professor. I realized I love to do research, and all my life, I have wanted to impact people.

Teaching was a noble thing to do, and I was impacting the young girls and a few boys positively, but I wanted more. As I started looking for postdoctoral positions, I reached out to Saad and found out about this opportunity to develop a matrix for sustainable crop protection in Africa.

The project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We were developing a raw, paper-like material made of crop residues, loading it with pesticide and shipping it to Africa. I was impressed by the impact that we are making in lives of smallholder farmers who couldn’t afford afford high-tech approaches to protect their crops in pest-infested soils.

Our treatment improved the quality of their crops and the yield by cutting down on the pesticide load, using only 10% of the commercial formulation and making it more effective in pest control and yield improvement. We realized a huge impact from recycling crop residue as a vehicle to deliver something needed by the plants, precisely where it was needed, with little-to-no off-target losses.

The farmers were happy because they were getting good quality crops that would make them more money, and the crops were more marketable because they had a longer shelf life.

As researchers, we were happy, too. We got published in cool journals, including Nature Sustainability and Nature Food. We filed an initial patent, and we didn’t want to stop there. We wanted to commercialize it.

How did you go about starting Soteria Formulations?

To begin with, the NC State Office of Research Commercialization encouraged us to work on customer discovery, so Dick and I took part in the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program at the regional level. We were then selected for the national Ievel, and after conducting over 180 stakeholder interviews, we realized there was a need that we could help fill by developing products compatible with large-scale farming and existing machinery.

What do you see as Soteria’s winning formula?

Soteria is a business, but it also has a cause that is going to impact people everywhere, not just the farmers or chemical manufacturers, but the consumers who want fewer or no agrichemicals at all on the food they eat.

Agriculture is global. It’s not just North America; it’s Europe, as well. And Europe is very picky about using synthetic chemistries and cutting down on use of synthetic polymers in agricultural formulations.

“One beauty of our approach is it reduces the number of applications of pesticides on the soil.”

Our solutions can help manufacturers keep their chemistries on the market, instead of spending millions of dollars and seven to 10 years developing alternatives. At the same time, we’re helping them check off environment, governance and social criteria, as well.

One beauty of our approach is it reduces the number of applications of pesticides on the soil. These days, about 20% to 40% of crops are lost because of pests. Not only that, but 75% to 90% of agrochemicals never reach the target. These losses can increase soil and water contamination and potentially impact human health. When these products are used frequently, they can also lead to pest immunity – and that’s harmful in ways that we are just now beginning to understand.

What are some of the challenges you are working on now?

We need to accelerate product development, and for that we need a bigger team. Since we are a platform technology and help agrochemical and biological manufacturers formulate their compounds more effectively, we need more feedback and more outreach with the large- and medium-scale manufacturers to know exactly what they’re looking.

Our customers also require a lot of product validation data, and once we show them validation data, and if it’s convincing, they will start testing it in their facility and consider licensing it. We’re lucky to be working with NC State Extension now for product validation in field and greenhouse trials.

NCBiotech has also been very helpful. We have a small business loan to develop our pelleted formulation NexGran™, which is being validated, and we have another translational research grant to develop a seed coating formulation.

Scaling up a product is another challenge. For the pelleted granules, we are working with a manufacturer with the capacity of developing one ton in an hour, which is promising. For each seed coating formulation, we need different solution, so that will take a little longer.

Fortunately, as we approach these challenges, we have the support of two experienced business executives: Howard Glicksman is a retired DuPont Fellow, successful entrepreneur and active startup investor, and he’s been our business consultant since 2022. And the N.C. PSI connected us to Natarajan Balachander, our business and technical adviser with deep experience in guiding companies from concept through manufacturing, partner development, technology transfer and market launch.

What has N.C. PSI’s Seed2Grow program meant to you and your company?

When I started my career, I never thought I’d be going in an entrepreneurial direction, but now I love what I do. Being part of NC State and the N.C. PSI has been the best thing that has happened to me as an entrepreneur.

I do not think we would be able to survive without them. Through Seed2Grow, we have monthly updates with Lisa (Chang, director of technology entrepreneurship and commercialization in the Poole College of Management) and Kathleen (Denya, N.C. PSI director of innovation partnerships). They’re there for us, asking us if we have any problems and if they can help us in any way and keeping us in the loop for other opportunities. And they are always putting us in touch with the right people in companies.  

I realize how blessed I am to be at the right place, hopefully at the right time. We are very optimistic. We did it in Africa for eight years, and we’ll do it here.

This post was originally published in Plant Sciences Initiative.