News

HiveTracks, co-founded by Max Rünzel, James Wilkes, and Laura Dye, is a global startup leveraging data from bees to monitor ecosystem health and quantify biodiversity. The company offers tools for beekeepers to track hive health and for organizations to assess habitat quality, positioning bees as biosensors that provide valuable environmental insights across large areas. HiveTracks' system enables companies and landowners to measure and market their environmental impact, comply with regulations, and potentially unlock new biodiversity markets through auditable, AI-assisted data collection. The ultimate goal is to create a marketplace where changes in nature can be monetized and ecosystem resilience can be enhanced.

Saudi start-up Terraxy, a KAUST spinout, has raised $3 million in a Seed-2 round led by Wa’ed Ventures, Aramco’s venture arm, to scale its proprietary soil-regeneration technology for arid environments. The funding will enable Terraxy to move from pilot to industrial scale, including building a commercial facility in Al Zulfi, and deploy its Carbosoil soil enhancer, which claims to boost plant growth and carbon storage in degraded desert soils. The company’s dual focus on productivity and carbon capture aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and broader sustainability goals, with strong backing from research institutions and regulatory frameworks.

Corteva and FMC Corporation are partnering to expand access to a dual-mode-of-action herbicide at a time when the former prepares for a Q4 spin-off and the latter seeks to pay down a $1 billion in debt.

The European Parliament has adopted new rules for plants developed using new genomic techniques (NGTs), shifting the EU from process-based to product-based regulation and aligning with models promoted by global agribusiness giants like Bayer, Syngenta, and Corteva. The legislation introduces a two-tier system: NGT-1 plants with changes comparable to conventional breeding will be fast-tracked and treated like traditional crops, while NGT-2 plants with more complex modifications will remain under GMO oversight. Industry groups have welcomed the changes as promoting innovation and competitiveness, but NGOs argue this amounts to deregulation, warning of risks to consumers, farmers, and organic supply chains. As the rules move toward implementation, debate continues over transparency, labelling, and safeguards.