With a name that stems from the Greek deity 'Gaia', the goddess of Earth, and 'go', meaning 'go fight for Earth, Gaïago is a biotechnology company striving to create a more sustainable planet by revitalising the Earth's soils and combat climate change. 

Established in St Malo, Brittany, France, in 2014, the company was created by Samuel Marquet and Francis Bucaille, farmers and soil experts. In 2019, a team led by Jean-Pierre Princen, former global executive at Monsanto and Dupont de Nemours in Europe and ex-CEO of Goemar / Arysta Biosolutions, joined the founders to scale up the company. Jean -Pierre is currently the President of the company. In 2022, Michel Funfschilling joined the company as CEO. Michel brought his expertise in international expansion and company structuration from the Cleantech sector. 

Gaïago's team is on board with the mission to positively disrupt the Agriculture sector and truly make a difference. Charles Vaury, Gaïago's Chief Transition Officer, would echo the company's mission by saying: "We are not looking for people whose main driver is money only. We are looking for people who are wanting to make an impact on Agriculture."

Today, a third or 66% of the planet's agricultural soils are degraded, with fertile soil being lost at a rate of 24bn tonnes per year. This troublesome finding by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is having a drastic effect on the planet and the global population.

The world's population is predicted to reach over 9 billion people in less than 40 years, and the demand for food is expected to be 60-100% higher than it is today, all contributing to a global food crisis. With that said, without an abundance of healthy soils available to grow the necessary crops we need to survive makes the 2050 food shortage a very real and very looming problem.

Not only do we need to address the issue with Earth's soils, but the issues we're facing from a climate change standpoint is also something we cannot forget. For example, although we witnessed a 5.8% decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2020, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 saw a 5% rebound in CO2 emissions. 

To put this into perspective, soils have released about 200 Gtons of CO2 since the beginning of the industrial revolution. This represents about 5 years of current CO2 emissions. And the good news is that this carbon can be sequestered again.

Humanity thrives when soils thrive. This mantra that Gaïago prides itself on is echoed by the four innovative solutions they have developed to restore the Earth's soil and agrosystems. 

When asked about the thought process behind these products, Charles said: "One thing is very important to keep in mind is that we start at the beginning. What is the beginning? It's soil. In fact, for 50 years, what we called the green revolution, with all the chemicals coming into Agriculture, we forgot about soil. 

Soils were treated as a substrate: you just feed the N PK (nitrogen(N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) nutrients) that the crop needs and then the crop will grow. But we never cared about the soil.

At Gaïago, we are working on soil revitalisation to make crops healthier, to be able to fight better and to allow biocontrol for crop protection to work correctly."

Gaïago's synergistic pre and probiotic products have been tried and tested through thousands of trials. The products are composed of a recipe of natural elements, to which only three members of the Gaïago family know the secret formula for effective use on all soil and crop types.

Gaïago produces each product in their facilities in St Malo, Brittany, with natural ingredients sourced sustainably from European wholesalers. 

The Gaïago team is always looking at ways to optimise the manufacturing process. They have already made progress with their Nutrigeo product, which was once able to produce 400,000 litres per year but can now produce 4 million litres annually.

One hundred distributors across Europe deliver the products to the farmers. Currently, Gaïago's solutions support farmers in countries including Germany, Belgium, France, Netherland, Poland, Czech, Hungary, and Slovakia - with the company looking to expand into more locations in the coming years.

Gaïago's solutions were developed with the farmers in mind. When using the products, the farmer does not need to worry about changing their farming methods, which would otherwise put producers off from using them. Instead, farmers incorporate the products into their existing practices, be it spraying the products on the soils or mixing the solutions with their insecticides and fertilisers. 

Not only does Gaïago keep life simple for farmers when it comes to the Nutrigeo product, but Gaïago has also given farmers another incentive to switch to their products. See how the plot thickens with Gaïago's second solution. 

Once Gaïago realised the benefits of their Nutrigeo product with carbon sequestration, they wanted to give farmers a further financial incentive to use their products and facilitate the transition to regenerative Agriculture. An incentive in the form of the Gaïago Carbon project - a carbon credit scheme whereby farmers can receive revenues from Gaiago in accordance with the carbon credits they generate. But how does this work? 

Essentially the farmers commit to using the Nutrigeo product for five years, from which Gaïago makes a profit. Then in years three and five, the soil is measured by a laboratory, according to a methodology certified by the FAO, and certified by one of the most qualitative CO2 accredited certifications globally, to see how much carbon has been sequestered. One tonne of sequestered carbon is equal to one carbon credit. 

These credits are then sold to companies in various industries who want to offset their CO2 emissions and ultimately want to be seen as carbon neutral. The special purpose company created for this carbon project does not make a profit, so the financial benefits of the credits go back to the farmers.

The programme is fully automated on Gaïago's digital platform. This tool connects to the farmers' equipment, allows for soil analysis to be monitored, and the transaction of carbon credit payments to be completed. 

The Gaïago Carbon project benefits everyone involved. Gaïago profits from selling their Nutrigeo product, and the farmers increase their soil fertility and crop yields. They receive money through sequestered carbon, and other companies can become carbon neutral. 

What's more, the farmers receive 100% of the profits from the carbon credit sales.