How this big tech-backed start up is making farming "a lot less volatile": Pivot Bio CEO

Pivot Bio is a startup revolutionizing agriculture by offering farmers the first in-field solution to biological nitrogen fixation. Pivot Bio CEO Karsten Temme joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to address how the agriculture industry is faring amid the coronavirus crisis.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance "On the Move." We talk a lot about yields when we talk about bonds, or we talk about yields with stocks and dividends. But what about crop yields?

Joining us now to discuss this is Karsten Temme. He is Pivot Bio's CEO. And they've got a product-- it's called PROVEN-- which is genetically modified microbes that a farmer can use to improve crop yields. Welcome to the program. How does this work?

KARSTEN TEMME: Well, thanks for having me. One of the things that we are motivated by at Pivot is making sure that farmers can produce enough yield to stay profitable, and yet feed the world, and do it so that we protect our natural resources. The way we use fertilizer today can't solve all three of those. And so we've come up with a microbe-- it's a probiotic that breathes in the air, and takes nitrogen gas around us. It makes it available to a plant.

JULIE HYMAN: Karsten, it's Julie here. As you know, there's been a big debate in the agricultural world about GMOs, also about the role of companies like Monsanto, which make pesticides, and then crop resistant-- crops that are resistant to pesticides. So there's this whole ecosystem that's controlled by a few companies. How do you break into that as an upstart?

KARSTEN TEMME: Well, one of the things that we realize is every farmer out there today-- the challenges, there's so many headwinds in being able to turn a profit. A corn farmer in the Midwest is having a really tough time being able to work with low commodity prices and high cost inputs. We just try to form the best relationship we can, and make their lives more predictable and more consistent.

So we've designed a product that can spoon feed a plant daily, and makes their bottom line a lot less volatile.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Karsten, how do you get over the fears that some consumers have when they hear that term, genetically modified? Because whether it's fertilizer or a genetically modified microbe producing the nitrogen, there are consumers who will tell their farmers we don't want it.

KARSTEN TEMME: Well, it's a great topic. And the one thing we've done as a company is we've said we're going to avoid building products that are transgenic. If you look at all of the GMO crops, the thing that consumers are saying is we don't want you to take some DNA from a different organism and put it in my crop.

And so what we're doing is we're working with nature's real solution, microbes that have done this since the dawn of time, and just went into hibernation when we started using synthetic fertilizer, you know, stuff made in big chemical plants. And we're just waking that back up. So it's what nature is already built to do. We just can't get it to work in today's modern ag system.

JULIE HYMAN: Karsten, you mentioned a couple of times keeping this economical for farmers. So how does your product compare to traditional fertilizer when it comes to cost?

KARSTEN TEMME: Great question. About half of fertilizer today turns into pollution. And that's the big challenge that farmers face. So what we do is we help be that consistent and dependable source of nutrients for the crop. It means it's a more bountiful harvest, so more revenue for a farmer.

And then we also eliminate some of the expenses and losses along the way. So fewer expenses in the hardware and equipment and tractors needed to apply the fertilizer, and less of it going to turn into pollution. So that means it's a lot more value for a farmer. And we can ensure they have a lot of profit, and still come out ahead as a company.

ADAM SHAPIRO: All right, Karsten Temme is Pivot Bio CEO. Thank you for being here "On the Move."