Empowering Women in Agrifood 2025: Interview with Anabel Millán Leiva, Co-founder of Cucare Diagnostics

Editor’s Note: This message was produced in cooperation and with financial backing from EIT Food.

On 11 November, the Empowering Women in Agrifood (EWA) 2025 Demonstration Day program happened in Seville, a campaign that sustains ladies business owners functioning to develop a much more lasting and cutting-edge food system.

Currently in its 6th version, EWA 2025 is a six-month business program developed to sustain ambitious and early-stage women business owners throughout 13 nations: Albania, Estonia, Greece, Italy, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Türkiye, and Ukraine.

Backed by EIT Food and the European Institute of Advancement and Modern Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, EWA aids individuals develop the abilities, self-confidence and networks required to establish and scale their concepts. Although ladies play an essential function in farming and country technology, their job usually goes underrecognised. The program aids resolve this space by using functional assistance, customized training and accessibility to a solid, resilient area.

This year’s version united skilled creators from throughout the area, each working with remedies that take on genuine difficulties in farming, sustainability and food manufacturing. On that particular note, today we begin the very first of a collection of 3 meetings highlighting standout individuals from this year’s EWA program. We start with an impressive female business owner, whose job brings clinical know-how and functional technology with each other to resolve vital difficulties in the agrifood market.

Meeting with Anabel Millán Leiva, Founder of Cucare Diagnostics

Can you begin by sharin g the ideas behind Cucare Diagnostics and just how your trip right into insect scientific research and agrifood technology started?

The Cucare starting group are researchers being experts in insect genes, virus, and chemical resistance. Our trip started at the College of Valencia, where we have actually invested over three decades researching just how pests connect with microbes and pesticidal substances.

With close collaborate with farmers and beekeepers, we began obtaining immediate phone calls aboutpests ruining plants and conditions erasing hives. Existing analysis devices were usually inaccessible or not practical in real-world problems.

As pest farming started to expand as a resource of alternate healthy proteins, a brand-new issue arised. Manufacturers were encountering severe health and wellness problems in their nests, yet had no other way to discover or comprehend the conditions impacting them. Much of these dangers were still unidentified, and no analysis devices existed to lead decision-making.

We understood we had the know-how to aid, yet our lab approaches were not available to those that required them most. That is when we determined to relocate past academic community. By functioning straight with beekeepers and farmers, we established and confirmed functional analysis devices in genuine manufacturing settings.

In 2025, we established Cucare Diagnostics as a spin-off from the College of Valencia, with the objective of bringing quickly, reputable, and useful diagnostics to insect manufacturing and agrifood systems.

What encouraged you to concentrate on insect health and wellness, parasite resistance and virus discovery, and just how do you see this job adding to a much more lasting and resistant food system?

Our inspiration originates from comprehending the important function pests play in food systems. They can be both a difficulty and a service: pests trigger significant losses in farming and animals manufacturing, yet they are additionally vital as organic control representatives and as one of one of the most lasting healthy protein resources readily available.

With our close collaborate with farmers, insect manufacturers, and various other stakeholders, we see firsthand the genuine difficulties encountering the agrifood market and the absence of functional devices to resolve them. We have the clinical understanding to aid, and we really felt a solid obligation to transform that understanding right into remedies that operate in the real life. At the exact same time, we understand food manufacturing should boost, yet not at the cost of the setting.

Chemical resistance is a clear instance. As resistance expands, parasite control ends up being much less efficient and chemical usage boosts, usually without understanding whether therapies will certainly function. By spotting resistance at the hereditary degree prior to therapies are used, we allow extra targeted parasite control, minimizing chemical usage and ecological effect while enhancing plant and animals health and wellness.

Insect farming is an additional fundamental part of the remedy, using a lasting means to fulfill the expanding need for healthy protein. Nevertheless, this young market encounters severe health and wellness difficulties. By allowing very early illness discovery and precautionary health and wellness administration, we aid make pest manufacturing extra resistant, effective, and lasting.

Eventually, our job sustains a much more resistant food system by allowing smarter pest control, minimizing ecological stress, and enhancing lasting healthy protein manufacturing.

Cucare Diagnostics uses innovative hereditary and molecular devices to insect administration and massive pest manufacturing. Can you stroll us via your strategy and discuss what establishes your remedies besides even more standard approaches?

Our strategy incorporates innovative hereditary and molecular innovations with bioinformatics and exclusive data sources to sustain insect administration and massive pest manufacturing.

These devices enable us to discover virus in insect nests at really beginning, long prior to noticeable signs show up. Early discovery is important, as it offers manufacturers time to interfere and protect against episodes, instead of responding as soon as losses are inevitable. Significantly, our approaches are not restricted to understood virus. We can evaluate the whole microbial area within a swarm, consisting of unidentified or unanticipated illness representatives, which is particularly vital in insect farming, where numerous virus are still badly comprehended.

Standard diagnostics depend primarily on aesthetic evaluation, microbiological societies, or targeted PCR examinations. These approaches typically need greater virus degrees, are responsive instead of precautionary, and can just discover what is currently understood, usually resulting in postponed or undetermined outcomes.

The exact same relates to chemical resistance discovery. While lab approaches exist, they are usually complicated, slow-moving, costly, and not available to farmers or beekeepers. Our resistance discovery solutions are developed to be quickly, scalable, and affordable. By determining resistance at the hereditary degree prior to therapies are used, we sustain much better decision-making, minimize unneeded chemical usage, reduced prices, and reduce ecological effect.

What genuinely establishes Cucare apart is our capacity to transform innovative molecular scientific research right into functional, workable remedies that operate in genuine manufacturing settings.

What were several of the largest difficulties you encountered while establishing Cucare Diagnostics, specifically when equating clinical study right into functional remedies for the agrifood market?

Among our largest difficulties has actually been changing our way of thinking from scholastic scientists to individuals developing functional remedies and a practical firm. In the laboratory, intricacy and lengthy timelines serve, yet in genuine manufacturing settings, they are not. Farmers and manufacturers require reputable solutions promptly, not best outcomes weeks later on.

From a clinical point of view, this implied adjusting really innovative molecular strategies to make them quickly, functional, and budget-friendly. One more obstacle was finding out to stabilize clinical rigour with the seriousness of the agrifood market. Our customers do not simply desire information; they require clear assistance on what to do following. That pressed us to equate complicated hereditary outcomes right into easy, workable referrals.

Structure trust fund outside academic community was additionally vital. We needed to reveal that molecular diagnostics might provide genuine, substantial worth in the area. In addition to that came the facts of developing a firm: protecting early-stage financing, taking care of administration, and finding out business side of points. It has actually been a high understanding contour, yet one we are dedicated to, since we genuinely rely on the effect this job can have.

When did you initially find out about the EWA program, and what encouraged you to get involved?

I initially stumbled upon EIT Food a couple of years earlier, also prior to establishing Cucare Diagnostics, via various training tasks and programs. I was attracted to its solid concentrate on functional technology in the agrifood market, which lined up carefully with my clinical history and passions.

I later on uncovered the EWA Spain program via EIT Food statements on social media sites. After checking into it, it was clear just how useful maybe, both for me as a business owner and for Cucare, specifically in regards to organization advancement and mentorship.

Recalling, participating in EWA Spain has actually surpassed my assumptions. It has actually assisted us develop Cucare’s approach and market emphasis, while additionally sustaining my individual development as a business owner and aiding me develop useful links. It has actually been a really transformative experience, and signing up with the program was definitely the ideal choice.

Exactly how did the mentorship and training throughout the EWA program affect your strategy to developing Cucare Diagnostics? What would certainly you claim are the 3 most useful takeaways from the program?

The training and mentorship we obtained via the EWA program have actually had a solid impact on just how we are developing Cucare Diagnostics.

The training sessions were well structured and covered all the vital facets an early-stage start-up demands, from concept recognition and organization versions to lawful subjects, money, advertising, management, and interaction. I valued that each subject was attended to with the ideal degree of deepness and plainly adjusted to the genuine demands of the individuals.

If I needed to highlight the 3 most useful takeaways, the very first would certainly be mentorship. The coaches were extremely expert, and the program did a superb work of matching coach and mentee. I was coupled with a phenomenal coach, a person with deep market experience and solid human understanding. She comprehended Cucare’s tactical instructions, the ideal timing for choices, and the individual stress of leading an early-stage firm. That mix of expert assistance and psychological knowledge was particularly useful throughout testing minutes, and I am really happy for her assistance, along with for the assistance of various other coaches along the road.

The 2nd vital takeaway was the area. The various other individuals and the EWA group produced an encouraging and joint setting where we shared difficulties, traded suggestions, and commemorated development with each other. Developing a start-up can really feel separating, and belonging to such an area made the trip really feel a lot less singular.

Lastly, the training and exposure offered by the program were exceptionally useful. Past functional abilities like throwing, market recognition, and tactical preparation, EWA provided Cucare exposure and integrity within the EIT Food environment. Accessibility to these networks and possibilities is aiding us expand much faster than we might carry our very own.

Sustainability is a core component of Cucare’s objective. Exactly how do your solutions help in reducing using chemicals while safeguarding plants, communities and insect health and wellness?

Sustainability goes to the core of Cucare Diagnostics since we concentrate on avoidance and notified decision-making, instead of responding as soon as troubles have actually currently risen.

In farming, unpredictability usually brings about chemical overuse. Farmers regularly use therapies without understanding whether they will really antagonize the insects existing. When resistance goes undiscovered and a therapy falls short, added chemicals are put on stay clear of plant losses, raising prices and ecological effect.

Our molecular resistance diagnostics eliminate that unpredictability. By determining resistance genetics prior to therapies are used, we aid farmers pick one of the most efficient remedy from the beginning. This brings about extra targeted parasite control, less applications, and reduced chemical usage. Therefore, ecological stress is minimized, deposits on plants are reduced, and the performance of existing chemicals is protected for longer, while safeguarding communities and valuable pests.

Exactly how do you see breakthroughs in insect scientific research and biotechnology forming the future of farming, parasite administration and lasting healthy protein manufacturing?

I think breakthroughs in insect scientific research will certainly play a significant function in changing food manufacturing, aiding it end up being extra lasting and much better taken care of. This indicates relocating far from responding to troubles once they take place and in the direction of precautionary techniques that minimize losses and restriction ecological effect from the beginning.

In parasite control, we are changing in the direction of extra specific, data-driven methods. Rather than wide, one-size-fits-all therapies, parasite administration is ending up being extra targeted, efficient, and ecologically accountable. At the exact same time, the pest manufacturing market is still finding out just how to totally sustain insect health and wellness and well-being, yet development is plainly being made. Expanding study right into insect nourishment, health and wellness, and illness is aiding make massive insect farming extra reputable and resistant.

Generally, I see massive capacity to boost just how food is generated, and I am certain we are relocating the ideal instructions in the direction of systems that are extra lasting, resistant, and eco-friendly.

In conclusion this meeting, what suggestions would certainly you provide to various other ladies business owners thinking about beginning a science-based organization in the agrifood market?

My suggestions is to concentrate on resolving genuine troubles, remain versatile, and confirm your concepts early. Count on your know-how and do not ignore your understanding and capacities. Keep in mind that being various and having a clinical history is not a constraint; it is an effective affordable benefit.

Most significantly, do refrain it alone. Choose mentorship, peer networks, and programs like EWA that incorporate technological, organization, and individual assistance. Developing a firm is requiring, particularly in the beginning, and having the ideal area makes a big distinction.

Much more on the program

As component of EWA 2025, Anabel signed up with an expanding #EWAProgramme area of greater than 600 alumnae throughout Europe. This network remains to sustain and open the capacity of early-stage women creators well past the period of the program.

She additionally had the chance to pitch her concept at the Next Bite Satellite occasion, Increasing Advancement With Female Management, hung on 4 December in Warsaw. The occasion united virtually 350 trendsetters, creators, and financiers to reassess the future of food and emphasize women-led technology throughout the agrifood environment.

Enrollment for EWA 2026 opens up quickly! Remain tuned and aid develop a future of food powered by ladies. More information is available here

Concerning EIT Food

EIT Food is the globe’s biggest and most vibrant food technology area. Backed by the European Institute of Advancement and Innovation, it functions throughout the food worth chain to speed up technology and entrepreneurship, furnishing changemakers with the abilities, devices, and assistance they require to improve the future of food.

EIT Food is just one of 9 technology neighborhoods developed by the European Institute of Advancement and Modern Technology (EIT), an independent EU body established in 2008 to drive technology and entrepreneurship throughout Europe.

Discover More at EIT Food or comply with EIT Food on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram

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