Grainswest - Fall 2026

Fall 2026 Grains West 32 B roadacre agriculture is synonymous with synthetic fertilizer. It’s the primary ingredient to a top crop and virtually all farmers use it. Canola, corn, soybeans and wheat all love a healthy dose of the critical input throughout the growing season, so to abandon its use sounds far-fetched. However, research suggests change is afoot, albeit not in Canada. Yet. In Brazil, the world’s No. 1 soybean producer since 2018, use of nitrogen fertilizer has historically been non-negotiable. However, one determined scientist has challenged this status quo for 43 years and counting. Her research has led her country’s farmers to embrace nitrogen-fixing bacteria, or biological microbial inoculants, as their primary source of nitrogen. Mariangela Hungria, the 2025 winner of the prestigious World Food Prize, is a researcher and globally renowned microbiologist with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, or Embrapa. She developed this pioneering technology in 1982, and suspected it could transform agriculture around the world. In Brazil, the inoculant Bradyrhizobia is applied to legumes, namely soybeans. A second inoculant, Azospirillum brasilense , created in 2009, is reserved for staples such as corn, forages and wheat. These two complex bacteria hold the potential to save the farming collective billions of dollars annually. BIOLOGICALS ON THE RISE Brazilian input transformation sees nitrogen-fixing bacteria replace synthetic fertilizer By Trevor Bacque • Photos courtesy of Embrapa Brazilian researcher Mariangela Hungria has led the country’s push to use biological microbial inoculants.