Exclusive interview with Alvaro Tangocci, Technical Consultant, Ergofito, a leading company in the environmental remediation and agricultural bio-technology sectors.

Q: Thank you for joining us today. Tell us a bit about your background and your current role at Ergofito.

My name is Alvaro Tangocci, I have run the scientific aspects of Ergofito for the last 23 years. As we are dealing with a totally natural product, R&D consists of understanding nature’s parameters. The work involves biology, soil science, quantum biology and a lot of respect and awe for how nature solves all problems.

Q: Would you take us through some of what the products that Ergofito manufactures that helps restore chemical imbalances in nature and how these are applied.

Ergofito consists of 43 consortia of bacteria, fungi and enzymes, all naturally extracted from soils that have never been farmed or mined. It is a friendly extraction as nature replaces it all in two hours after field collection. Such a natural mix decomposes all that is inert and organic, such as hydrocarbons in soil or water, raw sewage and effluents, to name a few.

The product is currently used in refineries, oil production fields in Ivory Coast and Congo as well as the rest of the world. Sewage plants are treated in many countries but mostly in South Africa. It is also used in agriculture where soils are depleted and where crops or plants underperform due to land abused by extensive chemical fertilisation and soil compaction.

However chemical fertilisers are vital for food production as our world is now close to nine billion people, we need increased production, hence chemical fertilisers. When used with natural bacteria, chemical fertilisation is called biological farming, which is the future for agriculture sustainability while increasing produce output. With biological fertilisation, the best of both worlds is achieved.

Q: What are some of your favourite success stories that Ergofito was involved with so far?

We have a couple of successes that are notable. The first one is the Government of Spain that requested a highly monitored proof of concept on growing cucumbers while increasing weight, reducing fertiliser by 30% and improving produce quality by a minimum of 30%. We ran the test over the full season with all goals achieved: We were awarded a prize for agricultural innovation as we set new standards in Spain. We introduced nature back to farming: The merit goes to nature.

The largest success to date is applying Ergofito for the purpose of increasing carbon sequestration in soil via photosynthesis. A four year test was set up in the Sundays River Valley on ten hectares of lemons of the cultivar Eureka. The test was done by independent soil scientist and laboratories. We averaged 100 tons of sequestered CO2 per hectare per year, which is ten times the industry standard.

Nature has captured carbon into soil via photosynthesis over a very long period. All the coal, gas and oil ever produced was done so by photosynthesis. As we entered the Industrial Revolution over two hundred years ago, we took and still take the said stored carbon and put it back in the air. It make sense to use nature again to return it back to the soil, and thus rendering soil more fertile, more resistant to plant pathogens and more resistant to climate change. Soil without carbon and microbes is called dirt.

Q: Where in Africa are you active?

At the moment, we are in Gabon, and we are active in Congo, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mozambique, and of course South Africa and Swaziland. We have a lot of inquiries for remediation from many countries, but currently we are fully active in these countries.

Q: What kind of certifications do you have?

In South Africa we have the DAF certificate for our agricultural mixes, for the environmental mixes we have EPA in the USA as well as Food Safe Certificate SANS 1828:2017 and European Norms EN 1276:2009.

Q: This is a very new and nascent sector, what have been the challenges so far?

The main challenge in carbon sequestration is that everyone uses all types of man-made solutions, it seems that understanding photosynthesis is a challenge. Fortunately that understanding, once presented, is more and more accepted as the norm.

Q: What is your vision for what carbon markets can mean for the continent?

Africa has a massive available area able to produce carbon credits for the international market. It would be a wonderful mechanism to export an African environmental solution while improving our soils and generate serious financial incentives out of it. That is without exporting any produce. It is a known fact that industrialised countries are the largest carbon emitters, but Africa is a victim of climate change in many ways. Now we can use nature in Africa’s favour while generating billions of US dollars via carbon credits. Such wealth will change many people’s lives for the better on our continent.

Q: Anything you would like to add?

In conclusion, carbon credits are mostly based on plant mass increase or the reduction of carbon emission. Such methods work and are positive, however they are not able generate sufficient carbon credits to really make a difference. Also no one can guarantee that illegal logging will not take place, or fires or plant sickness. While, by using photosynthesis the way nature does it, we can place the capture carbon in the rhizosphere and below, safe from fires, floods, climate change or theft, in other words, truly secure. It’s a solution that would be hard to question as treated soil can be measured independently and prove permanent carbon sequestration. Trust nature.