Ac-Planta is using the science of plant epigenetics to naturally unleash a crop’s potential to grow in various climates.

Their mission is to solve problems of declining agricultural production and food shortages caused by extreme weather conditions and climate change. As temperatures rise, heat, drought, and desertification become more common, Ac-Planta’s technology can accurately accelerate the solutions to sustainable and long-term systemic change.

To support the SDGs they aim to protect the environment by greening deserts, reforestation, and improving water conservation. Their first step has been to develop a collection of biostimulant products that efficiently save water and reduce plant production costs and management.

Biostimulants, not to be confused with pesticides, function as natural enhancers for the plant’s growth performance. A biostimulant is a substance or microorganism that, when applied to plants or soil, stimulates their processes naturally to enhance nutrient uptake, improve tolerance to abiotic stress, and promote growth and development.

The global biostimulant market was valued at $2.8 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $5.9 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 11.2% during the forecast period.

Biostimulants are widely used in the market by farmers today. Ac-Planta is different in that it is the world’s only technology that can safely and effectively improve the function of the plant body itself through external stimuli. Regulating histone acetylation allows their use with genetic modification and other methods.

Ac-Planta has been steadily building upon 15 years of published research and development to focus on proving the science with field data and entering the market with a solid business strategy. Their timing for entering the U.S. agriculture market from Japan, where they are currently based, is important because existing technologies are not accelerating with the need for solutions. Their advantage lies in proven traction and effectiveness of their product, a seasoned team, global trials, partnerships, and science that will regenerate planetary health. 

Meet Dr Kim, founder of Ac-Planta, and esteemed national treasure of Japan’s scientific community. 

When Dr. Kim is not scuba diving, cooking, or playing Jazz piano, he runs a lab and leads a skilled multidisciplinary team in Tokyo. His journey began with studying marine ecology and the co-relationship between living things and the environment. He pursued a Ph.D. in DNA replication and mitochondrial functions to focus on genetic analysis of mitochondrial genome DNA maintenance via amino acid biosynthesis. He completed a Metabolism PosDoc at the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute in Prof. Michael Grunstein’s Lab. His focus was on the universal and fundamental system: epigenetics is the cutting edge of science. 

Through his epigenetics research, Dr. Kim found a way to safely activate and maximize the use of the useful genetic information that organisms have accumulated over their long evolutionary history.

At the RIKEN Plant Science Center, Dr. Kim continued to pioneer plant research linking environmental stress and epigenetics. He discovered that all plants could tolerate water deficit stress using acetic acid Plants' resistance to drought involves global reprogramming of transcription, cellular metabolism, hormone signalling and chromatin modification3–8. These findings were published in Nature Journal in 2017.

For Dr. Kim, the path to founding and operating a company was out of necessity and urgency due to his desire to share in-depth subject knowledge on climate solutions.  

Fifteen years of research from the lab helped develop the first products (Skeepon), which are eco-friendly solutions used by farmers in simple ways. Skeepon has SAR-type properties that increase drought tolerance and improve post-harvest crop quality. Farmers can add the product to their vegetables, resulting in vegetable tolerance against heat, drought, and salinity throughout the growing season. The ease of delivery has made the product a favorite of Japanese farmers, with over 10,000 liters sold.

Through various trials with vegetable growers in Japan, “Skeepon” was found to be highly effective for an active establishment, which was invariably subject to drought stress. It also reduced the stress caused by subsequent temperature and humidity fluctuations. The change in the farm operations is minimal, also providing tolerance to high temperatures and drought.

There have been over 100 trials conducted in Japan, with trials scheduled now in California with local farmers, partnerships with UC Davis, UC Riverside, the CA Tomato Research Institute, and US Forestry Service. There are also experiments taking place in Uganda, Australia, India, Korea, Italy, and Spain

The data and results of these trials were shown to increase productivity in plants. At UC Riverside, lettuce that have been applied with skeepon, produced leafy greens surviving without watering. The results and case studies have also been shared by several public institutions in Japan.

The amount of traction would not have been possible without Ac-Planta’s talented international team of scientists and business strategists. 

Together they have worked to bring the technology to market and make it the most effective in its category, with added support from the Japanese government. Revenues and growth have come from distributors, including Hokurren (one of the largest agriculture sales companies). The government endorsement and support for the technology include partnerships with the ministries of agriculture and fishery and investment from Norinchukin Bank (the largest investor in Japanese agriculture) and Sony’s corporate venture fund.

To expand the business to the U.S. vegetable market, targeting corn and beyond, the unit economics have shown to benefit distributors, farmers, and the environment. 

For vegetables, the investment is about $100 per acre. For example, Hokkaido broccoli saw about a 26% improvement, which resulted in a $2400/acre yield retention. If there is at least 2-3% transplant shock, farmers can quickly get a return on their investments. Dr. Kim is presently collecting more individual data on this piece. The customers and their stories provide a continued source of feedback for the team to improve the technology and uses.

Additional benefits are improved yields, and more uniform harvest timing leads to leveling work schedules- reducing labor costs. Farmers without water rights can reduce watering costs during the season. Plants will survive if they are heavily stressed after planting due to severe drought. In this sense, it is also an insurance policy. The challenges ahead lie in the race against time and the further adoption of Ac-Planta’s products to improve crop yeilds, and resist drought and salination.

New R&D is needed to develop and expand the availability of epigenetics in plants. New plant breeding methods using epigenetics need testing. Control methods need testing to optimize plant growth to increase productivity and decrease water usage, fertilizer, and CO2. Mass production of highly functional plant components, analysis of gene function that enables rejuvenation, highly conserved in from yeast, in plant and human. There is continued progress to make.