ICL Targets the Fast-Growing $11B Foliar Spray Market

ICL’s BIOZ line goes far beyond fertilizers – it activates the plant’s own biology to absorb nutrients better, resist drought, and yield more. In a market racing toward $11 billion, that distinction is everything.

What if a spray could make a plant smarter?

Not just feed it – but make it fundamentally better at using every nutrient it already has access to?

That is the science ICL Group has industrialized through its BIOZ biostimulant platform, and it is quietly becoming one of the most commercially disruptive forces in the global Foliar Spray Market.

The Foliar Spray Market was valued at USD 7.60 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 11.12 billion by 2030 at a 4.7% CAGR, according to Maximize Market Research. ICL has positioned its biostimulant platform precisely at the intersection of two forces reshaping that market: the demand for higher yields and the growing pressure to use fewer synthetic chemicals.

The BIOZ System: When Biology Meets Precision Nutrition

ICL’s BIOZ range is not a single product – it is a modular system of scientifically formulated biostimulants, each targeting a specific plant physiological challenge:

• BIOZ Keep Green: a foliar biostimulant that protects coffee trees from heat and solar radiation stress – delivering an average of 7 additional sacks per hectare in field trials
• BIOZ Onyx Annual: a triple-action biostimulant that extends flowering periods, improves fruit set, and boosts pod retention in annual crops
• BIOZ Diamond: a soil biostimulant that enhances microbial diversity in the root zone, improving the plant’s ability to access nutrients already in the soil
• BIOZ Nephrite: designed specifically to optimize nitrogen fixation efficiency in legumes and other crops

MMR Insight: The key insight driving ICL’s strategy: biostimulants do not replace fertilizers – they make fertilizers work better. Every dollar of biostimulant investment amplifies the return on every other agricultural input.

A New Plant in Maharashtra – and a Global Expansion Play

ICL has launched a new production facility in Maharashtra, India – a move that is strategically significant on multiple levels.

India represents one of the highest-growth opportunities in the global foliar spray market. Its rapidly scaling horticulture sector, government programs addressing micronutrient deficiencies, and a farming population becoming increasingly aware of precision nutrition creates the exact conditions where ICL’s science-heavy approach can command premium positioning.

The Maharashtra plant improves supply security across the Asia-Pacific region – the largest and fastest-growing geography in the global foliar spray market, accounting for approximately 39% of global revenue in 2024.

Final Take

The foliar spray market is dividing into two tiers. The first tier competes on commodity inputs, scale, and price. The second tier competes on biological science, precision formulation, and measurable yield outcomes.

ICL has deliberately positioned itself in the second tier – and is building the manufacturing infrastructure, agronomic expertise, and product science to defend that position across every major agricultural market on earth.

In a market heading toward $11 billion, that distinction will determine which companies lead and which ones follow.