Brazil is a key market for bio-inputs. Data from CropLife Brasil shows that the bio-input industry generated BRL 4.5 billion in revenue in 2024, a 30% increase compared with 2022. The sector’s revenue grew more than sixfold in five years: in 2019, it was BRL 675 million.
In 2025, Brazilian bio-input exports totalled $68.32 million, accounting for 7% of the country's total agricultural input exports of $976 million. This represents a 7% growth in the sector compared with 2024. The global bio-input market is expected to continue growing, reaching an estimated $45 billion by 2032. This projection is driven by the anticipated expansion of bio-input adoption in the US and Europe, as well as Brazil’s continued increase in the area treated with such products.
These positive results are also reflected in the regulatory landscape: Brazil ended 2025 with 162 newly registered products classified as bio-inputs, the highest number recorded in the country. This total includes formulated biological, microbiological, and biochemical products; plant extracts; growth regulators; and semiochemicals, all of which are suitable for use in organic agriculture. According to data from CropLife Brasil, there are now over 1,000 registered bio-inputs in the country, positioning Brazil as a hub for biological agricultural formulations.
Regulatory framework and strategic objectives
On December 24 2024, Law No. 15,070/2024, the Regulatory Framework for Bio-Inputs, came into effect in Brazil, establishing guidelines for the production, marketing, and use of bio-inputs in agriculture. Since its enactment, the country has added further incentives to adopt more sustainable agricultural practices, foster increased legal certainty, and encourage innovation.
Establishing this regulatory framework was one of the strategic objectives of the National Bio-Inputs Programme, instituted by the federal government in 2020. Among the programme’s objectives are promoting good practices in the production and use of these inputs, as well as encouraging research, development, and innovation in the field. As a result, there has been a strengthening and expansion of bio-input use in Brazilian agriculture and a reduction in dependence on synthetic inputs.
Law No. 15,070/2024 defines bio-inputs as “a product, process, or technology of plant, animal, or microbial origin, including those originating from a biotechnological process, or structurally similar and functionally identical to a product of natural origin, intended for use in the production, protection, storage, and processing of agricultural products or in aquatic production systems or planted forests, interfering with the growth, development, and response mechanisms of animals, plants, microorganisms, soil, and derived substances and interacts with physical-chemical and biological products and processes” (Article 2, item II). In this context, biofertilisers, biostimulants, bioinoculants, and biological control agents – including bioinsecticides, biofungicides, and bionematicides – are key examples of bio-input categories.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply, the use of bio-inputs generates annual savings for Brazil of approximately BRL 165 million through the application of biological control products and around $13 billion through biological nitrogen fixation in soybean cultivation alone. These savings contribute to economic growth that is expected to accelerate in the coming years, driven by the expansion of the biologicals market in Brazil and worldwide, the high productivity potential of sustainable Brazilian tropical agriculture, and the demands of the productive sectors and society.
Given this prosperous and highly promising commercial scenario, it is relevant to analyse bio-inputs from the perspective of industrial property as well. To this end, a study mapped patent applications related to the subject that had been filed in Brazil over the past 10 years. This included utility patent applications and certificates of addition filed between 2015 and 2024, using selected International Patent Classification and Cooperative Patent Classification codes, as well as keywords related to microorganisms and agriculture. Searches were conducted in the title, abstract, claims, and specification fields using the Orbit database. The data from the identified cases was collected by consulting the Licks Attorneys database, which is fed by data published by the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BRPTO) in its Official Gazette and its BuscaWeb system.
A total of 1,247 patent applications were identified within this scope, of which:
59.66% were Patent Cooperation Treaty applications;
36.25% were domestic applications; and
4.09% were filed via the Paris Convention.
Figure 1 illustrates a significant increase in patent applications filed in the field of bio-inputs between 2017 and 2019 (the figures for 2024 may be incomplete due to the 18-month confidentiality period after the filing date).
Figure 1: Total applications per filing year
There has been an increase in the number of bio-input applications being examined and decided at the first administrative instance since 2019, reaching particularly high levels from 2022 (see Figure 2). These numbers are expected to remain high, as 373 applications are awaiting the start of substantive examination, and others are under examination awaiting a decision.
Patent trends and examination outcomes
Of the applications decided, an allowance rate of 59.43% was observed over the entire study period, with a rate of 60.95% in the past 12 months. This relatively low allowance rate was somewhat expected, given the restrictions imposed by the Brazilian Industrial Property Law regarding the patentability of natural products – particularly the whole or part of living organisms and biological materials – even if isolated from nature through directed selection. Indeed, of the mapped applications that were rejected, it was found that the rejection was based on Article 10, IX and/or Article 18, III of the Brazilian Industrial Property Law in 15% of the cases.
This data suggests that a significant portion of the technologies for which protection is sought in Brazil does not find legal support regarding their patentability in the country.
Figure 2: Total number of applications per year of decision at the first administrative instance
Key applicants and international landscape
Figure 3 ranks the top 15 patent applicants in Brazil. Among global companies in the agricultural inputs sector, Embrapa (the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) stands out in third position, being a leading public agricultural research institution in the country. Also noteworthy are the Brazilian universities that feature prominently in the ranking.
Figure 3: Top 15 applicants
Among the countries of origin of these patent applications, Brazil ranks first, followed by the US, as shown in Figure 4. Together, these two countries account for 65.20% of the mapped applications.
Figure 4: Top 15 countries of origin
These figures highlight the relevance and strength of the Brazilian agricultural sector in the field of bio-inputs, also from an industrial property perspective.
However, although the number of patent applications related to bio-inputs in the country is increasing, it is not keeping pace with the accelerated growth of the market. There is room for more inventions, which requires greater awareness and investment from economic agents in protecting their technologies in an extremely attractive and strategic territory such as Brazil.
Similarly, it is important to conduct an ongoing assessment of the national industrial property environment, monitoring the provisions and incentives aimed at improving the BRPTO’s legal and regulatory framework and, consequently, the granting of patents in this field.
