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Queen’s University hosted the Bio-inoculants for the promotion of nutrient use efficiency and crop resiliency in Canadian agriculture (BENEFIT) project annual meeting earlier this month. Co-led by Faculty of Arts and Science research George diCenzo, the Genome Canada funded research program aims to develop bio-inoculants to improve crop growth in Canadian agriculture.

Tying in with the research work dr. DiCenzo is doing on the BENFIT project, the university also hosted the 27th North American Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation Conference (NASNFC). The primary aim of the NASNFC is to provide a platform for researchers across various, related specialties to share and discuss the latest findings in nitrogen fixation research in North America.

Nitrogen fixation is the process of converting inert atmospheric nitrogen gas into a usable, reactive form that plants can absorb. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth. Even though air is about 78 per cent nitrogen, plants cannot “breathe” it in. Fixation acts like a nitrogen translator, turning it into a form plants can actually “eat” to grow.

The highlight of the conference was a keynote address by , a Brazilian agronomist and microbiologist noted for pioneering work on biological nitrogen fixation. In 2025 she became the first Brazilian woman to receive the World Food Prize, often referred to as the .

“We have a great opportunity right now to get funds and get attention for farmers,” Dr. Hungria says, during an interview prior to her keynote. “It’s also a great opportunity for responsibility. The number of published papers does not relate to what we are delivering to the farmers that need us. I know the BENEFIT project is focusing on delivering for farmers and that is extremely important.”

She says scientists know their research works, and they can replace chemicals with biologicals, like nitrogen fixing bacteria, and adds she has hope for the future if researchers and farmers can continue to work closely together.

“Farmers are farmers everywhere. They care about the land, they want to improve soil health, they want sustainability, and, most of all, they need help. We can help.”

The two conferences also gave Dr. diCenzo an opportunity to provide an update on the BENEFIT project. The $6 million funding announcement was made in September 2023 and Dr. diCenzo and co-project lead Dr. Ivan Oresnik from the University of Manitoba have made progress in advancing their research in developing alternative microbial fertilizers.

The mission is identifying and optimizing microbial inoculants for Canadian varieties of wheat, barley, canola, kale, bean, and pea.

“Our biggest success has been our dry bean work,” he explains. “These are beans like navy beans, kidney beans, and black beans. Growers are still using a lot of chemical fertilizers so if we can replace that, that will save them a lot of money, it saves nitrous oxide emissions, and so on. We aren’t at the point of having a commercial product we can sell, but we’ve made a lot of progress. We did small-scale preliminary field trials last year and it’s very promising. This has been our biggest success to date.”

For more than 50 years, industrial chemical fertilizers have been the go-to solution for plant nutrition in commercial agriculture, leading to a dramatic rise in crop yields. However, they also account for up to 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions associated with all plant and animal agriculture in Canada. Nitrogen fertilizers are also a major economic cost to our farmers, and because they are imported, their price can fluctuate dramatically depending on international geopolitical events.

With just over one year left on the BENEFIT project funding, Dr. diCenzo and his team have several areas of focus. “We want to prioritize our field trials. We’ve done a lot of work in the lab but often those results don’t translate well in the field as lab work is done under controlled conditions. Field trials are much more realistic. We have some trials planned for this summer and plan to replicate them next year to see if the results are repeatable. That preliminary data could help us get more funding and more support for the project.”

He is hopeful that by the end of the grant, they could have strains to provide to commercial companies to see if they can develop them for the Canadian market.