Monarch Crops

Building an alternative to insecticides is one of the most important technical challenges of our time. Most fruits and vegetables are sprayed with insecticides, including organics. The top three sprayed on these crops are toxic to the human nervous system. An estimated 35 quadrillion animals are killed yearly because of their use. And farmers lose tens of billions of dollars a year because insecticides often fail at their basic job: preventing insects from destroying crops. Monarch is developing a product that works—a spatial repellent that protects crops from insects, humans from toxins, and insects from needless harm. It will work by preventing insects from landing on crops in the first place. We’re building a genomic, molecular, and behavioral dataset from the ground up. Then applying computational chemistry and machine learning tools to predict which of the billions of potential compounds in nature trigger a ‘fly away’ signal from the olfactory neurons in the antennae to the smell center in the animal’s brain. From that unexplored data space, we’ll create the most effective products to protect crops and our long-term health.