India’s bioeconomy touched a remarkable valuation of US$165.7 billion in 2024, reflecting its rising significance in national development.
Climate change is no longer a distant threat. Its impacts are vast and increasingly visible across ecosystems, economies, and communities worldwide. Variations in rainfall, extended droughts, unseasonal floods, increasing temperatures, wildfires, storms, deteriorating soil health, and other environmental disturbances are affecting the availability, reliability, and variability of natural resources. These disparities can considerably disrupt the biomass-dependent supply chains.
Climate Change and Bioeconomy
India’s bioeconomy touched a remarkable valuation of US$165.7 billion in 2024, reflecting its rising significance in national development. This sector has notably progressed into a key driver of sustainable growth. Areas such as bioenergy, industrial enzymes, biofuels, green chemicals, agricultural inputs, and bio-based materials not just contribute to the economic front but reflect environmental responsibility. However, climate change poses a growing threat by disrupting the biological raw materials. Consequently, for India, the risks are even more crucial because the key players of national bioeconomy are agriculture, forestry, and biomass-based industries. Therefore, to ensure the accelerated expansion of the bioeconomy, it is vital to build resilience against climate-induced feedstock variability and unpredictability.
The innovations and efficient solutions through biotechnological interventions can help India “climate-proof” its bioeconomy. Biotechnology presents a powerful set of tools to build resilience, improve efficiency, and fully utilize climate-smart and circular bioeconomy potential.
Biotechnology enables progress on the following four interconnected fronts:
1. Producing sustainable biomass feedstocks through drought-tolerant crops, fast-growing energy grasses, and microbial biomass.
2. Improving efficiency in processes such as fermentation, anaerobic digestion, and composting, thereby empowering sustainable production.
3. Bioplastics, biochemicals, and green solvents represent low-carbon bio-based products.
4. Enhancing carbon sequestration through biochar, soil microbes, microbial CO2 capture, and engineered plants.
These applications not only reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission but also ensure ecological damage reversal in the longer run.
Resilience through Biotech Innovations and Solutions
The Indian bioeconomy is divided in four segments: bio-industrial, biopharma, bio-agriculture, and bioservices. Among these, the bio-industrial segment contributes the most, around 48.09% amounting to approximately US$72.6 billion. The biomass dependency of this sector primarily lies in agricultural residues, forestry by-products, municipal solid wastes, etc. However, to overcome the challenges arising as outcomes of climate change, industrial biotechnology offers several adaptive approaches through innovations. Few potential interventions are as follows:
- Feedstock flexibility: engineered microbial strains capable to thrive in low-grade or variable biomass. Additionally, microbes including the thermophilic and halophilic species are tailored to perform under temperature or salinity fluctuations (where the fermentation fails to perform).
- Advanced enzyme technologies: to improve lignocellulosic biomass conversion from climate-resilient crops such as millets, bamboo, water hyacinth, parthenium, etc. This leads to diversification from traditional feedstocks to alternative sources without impacting the yield.
- Waste valorization pathways: allow conversion of organic waste (sewage sludge and food wastes) into high-value biofertilizers, platform chemicals, and microbial proteins. This makes an excellent circular model reducing the dependence on agricultural feedstock, thereby enhancing resilience during the poor harvest seasons.
- Decentralized biorefineries: employing both microbial bioconversion and fermentation technology at local-level biorefineries can support region-specific processing of biomass. Moreover, it reduces the cost of logistics, thereby stabilizing the supply chains.
The climate emergency we face requires an urgent shift in both production and consumption models. The previously mentioned biotech interventions collectively ensure that India’s bioeconomy flourishes even under such conditions.
Biotechnological breakthroughs such as production of biofuels and sustainable aviation fuels reduce dependency on conventional crops and fossil fuels. Similarly, in agriculture, innovations such as stress-resilient crops, biosensors optimize biomass productivity and reduce spoilage. Bio-based crop protection tools and microbial fertilizers further support consistent raw material availability, even under climate stress.
Table 1 presents all the four sectors contributing to Indian bioeconomy, along with their valuation, percentage share, dependency on biomass, impact of climate change, and response through biotechnological tools.
| Sector | Value (US$ in billion) | % Share | Biomass Dependency | Climate Impact | Biotech Response |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bio-Industrial | 72.6 | 48.09 | Direct – agri waste, forest residues | Variability, scarcity, logistics | Engineered microbes to utilize low-grade or variable feedstocks, feedstock-flexible/smart biorefineries |
| Bio-Pharma | 53.8 | 35.65 | Medium – microbial/plant cultures | Process contamination, biological stress | Resilient strains, climate-controlled systems |
| Bio-Agri | 12.4 | 8.24 | Medium – carrier and feedstock for microbes | Crop residue loss, pest changes | Stress-tolerant microbes, smart formulations |
| Bio-Services | 12.1 | 8.02 | Indirect – biomass analysis | Data gaps, prediction uncertainty | Geospatial tools, digital twin modelling |
Table 1: A presentation of all the four sectors contributing to Indian bioeconomy, along with their valuation, percentage share, dependency on biomass, impact of climate, and response through biotechnological tools
The Way Forward
In conclusion, it is essential to address crucial challenges such as climate-induced biomass unpredictability, systemic risks, limited access to finance and technology, uneven authority, and exclusion of local communities. However, tackling these barriers requires robust policy support. Additionally, for industrial biotech to fully deliver on its potential, India needs to align its policy frameworks and infrastructure investments. This may include flexible biomass procurement norms, financial support for decentralized Research and Development (R&D), investments in feedstock logistics such as cold storage, etc., and incentives for multi-output biorefineries, which are capable enough to switch between fertilizers, fuels, and green chemical production based on the availability of biomass.