b"A Whole New Approach to Crop NutritionNiklas strm is CEO of Arevo, a Swedish-based company that offers an all-new avenue in crop nutrition: liquid and granular amino acid plant nutrition technologies that deliver all the crop productivity with nearly zero leaching. Madeleine BaergNIKLAS, YOU JOINEDArevo as afeel there are more opportunities member of its board of directors into enhance sustainability and 2019, then took over as CEO this pastproductivity by learning from September. Why the change?nature?Last fall, when we started more seri- Absolutely. The product we have comes ously discussing taking the companyfrom a natural process. We learned from a start-up to a scale-up, I certainlyfrom nature, and were still learning from wasnt intending to assume the CEO role.nature. Our goal is to bring to market a But, this spring, I had a coffee with ourwhole system to support growing plants companys founder where we discussedmore efficiently from seed to harvest. Arevos next steps. He said, You have all these ideas, the contacts and the passion.To get real traction for your Would you consider taking over as CEO?product, youll have to convince the The idea grew on me. I knew we hadagriculture industry to change their a good base, good investors and the kindperspective on nitrogen application of product you maybe find once in yourin a really significant way. Do-able? lifetime. I had a discussion with my familyChange is coming. The research behind because going from being a CEO with athis concept is more than a decade old, huge, public company to a start-up wasand the technology has been proven in a risk, of course, and a challenge, but alsothe forest sector for nearly as long. On a great opportunity. My family felt howthe agriculture side, weve been doing lab excited I was and how confident I waswork and field trials for four years. The that all the pieces were there for Arevo todata clearly shows that our product pro-really take off, so they said, Do it!. as much money as possible. Achieving allduces close to zero leaching while sup-that depends on high-quality research. porting excellent plant growth. Thats a Arevo as a company and yourreal solution to some of agricultures big-flagship product, arGrow, grewWhy agriculture?gest challenges and has already attracted out of academic research. IsI believe farmingthe ability to providethe interest of one of the big guy global the connection to research andfood to the worldis the single mostcompanies. We are aiming to be on the academia still a priority for theimportant priority humans face. We needmarket in the next 18-24 months. I think company? to give farmers products and technolo- the ag industry is hungry for solutions Definitely. We very much have thegies that help them in real ways.that work. culture of a research-based company.My grandpa was a farmer. I wasnt Our founder and current chief technicalborn on the farm, but I grew up veryWhen youre not busy at work, how officer, Professor Torgny Nasholm stillclose to farming. I've been working on thedo you spend your time?spends half his time at the Agriculturemachine side of agriculture in the front- This work is so fun that I dont need great University of Sweden. Our goal is toend loader business for 20 years. So, Ivacations and escapes! But I am an avid deliver to the market solutions that mean- understand the pressures and challengesskier and I love spending time with my ingfully reduce farmings dependency onof farming, and I deeply care about sup- family. So, when Im not working, youll inorganic fertilizers, while supporting theporting the farming community.find me at a ski cabin carving fresh tracks environment, while producing as much orin the snow with as many of my three more quality and yield as a conventionalArevos technology is cutting edge,(now adult) children as I can convince to fertilizer delivers, while making farmersyet its based on nature. Do youjoin me.SWDECEMBER 2023SEEDWORLD.COM /101"