As per Reuters, a company from Malaysia uses fly larvae to improve soil quality, while a Canadian researcher, named Vicky Levesque, is adding burnt residue coming from plants and food waste to help apple trees grow better.

Experts at UN's Food and Agriculture Organization warn that by 2050 we could lose as much as 10% of our farmable land if we don't do something to prevent its desertification.

Bayer AG, one of the world's largest seed companies, is looking at new ways to improve soil quality.

Matthias Berninger, Bayer's head of sustainability, said that "we have really started to focus on the soil in ways we traditionally wouldn't have done."

Biochar represents a way of creating carbon-rich products that can boost the soil's productivity and it uses organic matter, such as cooking residue and animal and plant decomposed material.

Vicky Levesque says that biochar can be a "great opportunity" to boost plant growth and even capture carbon emissions in the ground.

In experts' testing, biochar was able to boost the yields of greenhouse-grown tomatoes and sweet peppers by 32% and 54%, but scientists need to do more testing before jumping the gun on this new product.

Malaysia-based Nutritious Technologies produces a soil booster that comes from the waste and skin of Black Soldier Fly larvae, leading to a boost in soil quality by as much as 12%.

The company provides farmers in the country with about 200 tons per month and it raised 20 million USD last September in a funding round.