A new regional initiative is being introduced to make biological agri-inputs more relevant, scalable, and accessible across Southeast Asia’s farming systems.
Biologicals have long promised a more sustainable and regenerative future for our food systems, but in Southeast Asia, they’ve struggled to reach scale and adoption. Now, a new regional initiative, the Asia Biologicals Platform, is being introduced to change that. The initiative begins with an open call to industry and will build toward a dedicated industry forum, the Asia Biologicals Symposium, on 3 November 2025, where stakeholders will align priorities, surface opportunities, and co-develop a regional effort reflective of Southeast Asia’s unique farming systems.
The Asia Biologicals Platform is a multi-year effort to address long-standing barriers in the development, validation, and uptake of biological agri-inputs. It brings together innovators, growers, researchers, funders, regulators, and platforms to help unlock the potential of biologicals to support a more restorative, climate-resilient farming system that is tailored to the needs of Southeast Asia’s diverse and dynamic agriculture sector.
“We’ve built momentum in the US, Australia, and New Zealand — now it’s time to localise and scale this across Asia. The Asia Biologicals Platform brings the shared infrastructure we need to fast-track adoption, align regulations, and unlock growth for a new class of agri-inputs,” said Peter Wren-Hilton, Founder of Wharf42 and the Salinas Biologicals Summit.
The initiative draws from the successful Platform10 model, which has facilitated crop-specific field trials through multi-stakeholder partnerships. This new effort will adapt the approach in Southeast Asia, launching collaborative, pre-commercial trials across priority crops and regions, creating a pipeline of data-backed, market-ready solutions.
“We want to connect innovators to Asia’s crop challenges, work with funders and governments to support field-based projects that deliver measurable outcomes and drive farmer adoption of biologicals at scale. Through science, partnerships and real-world trials, we want to move beyond pilot fatigue and deliver real outcomes for farmers and ecosystems,” said Joshua Soo, CEO of Agrifood Futures.
“This is about turning good science into real-world change. By generating data-backed evidence and deep regional insight, we can help farmers adopt biologicals and cleaner technologies with confidence—lifting both profitability and sustainability,” said Dr Christine Pitt, Managing Director of Farmers2Founders.
Join the Dialogue — Help Shape the Asia Biologicals Platform
Further details will be shared at the Asia Biologicals Symposium during Singapore International Agrifood Week. In the lead-up, the founding team will continue engaging with industry to align priorities and shape early initiatives.
The Symposium will gather stakeholders from across the value chain to collaborate in a pre-competitive setting–mapping shared trials, regulatory strategies, adoption pathways, and regionally relevant projects designed to achieve broad goals such as:
- Deploy cleaner tech on farms: Prove and scale biologicals that reduce toxicity, restore soil and planet health.
- Match innovation to real situational challenges: Focus portfolio offerings on crop-specific needs across Southeast Asia’s farming systems.
- Enable farmer-first adoption: Design pilot trials, farmer adoption, and engagement strategies to drive uptake.
- Unlock investments and blended capital: Provide data, field validatio,n and regulatory alignment to de-risk investment and support joint-up investments and partnerships.
Be Part of Building Asia’s Biologicals Future
The Asia Biologicals Platform is being shaped now and is spearheaded by Wharf42, Agrifood Futures, and Farmers2Founders — who are joining forces to bring together complementary expertise in biological trials, commercialisation, and farmer engagement to build a platform tailored to Asia’s needs and opportunities.
Whether you’re building, testing, investing in, or supporting biological solutions, Asia Biological invites you to join them in co-creating a platform at the Asia Biological Symposium on November 3rd, 2025, during Singapore International Agrifood Week (SIAW).
You can register to receive more information here.
