Bioceres, on the Argentine route of leading global agriculture

Bioceres, on the Argentine route to lead global agriculture

31/01/2017

The almost immediate results of this phenomenon of repatriation and insertion, added to the investment and the promotion of scientific research in agriculture, have almost tripled the growth of agricultural production in Argentina in recent years.

In the current world framework, in which the development of technology and scientific research are the fundamental tools with which countries, organizations, and individuals can achieve the objectives of true development in any activity, the Argentine authorities have set the objective to advance in this perspective in the field of agricultural production and achieve real levels of international leadership in the agricultural sector.

The country in recent years has grown in more than one 15% its scientific research plant, leading the number of researchers per inhabitant in the continent, although still below the indices of developed countries.

In the wake of the global economic crisis, from 2009, researchers were repatriated and incorporated into the Argentine productive system around 150 per year, returning companies, universities and the State itself to share their knowledge.

This reinsertion has caused an important movement and the emergence of multiple projects and studies in different areas of production, mainly in regard to agricultural development.

Concern about the genetics of plants has been the main focus and progress has been made in the development of plant varieties resistant to pests and diseases, or with special properties to cope with droughts and changes in climate, or by developing studies and research that allow a more abundant and better quality production. The almost immediate results of this phenomenon of repatriation and insertion, added to the investment and the promotion of scientific research in agriculture, have almost tripled the growth of agricultural production in Argentina in recent years.

The investment of Argentina in Research and Development, R & D, is of 0,65% of GDP and only Brazil is above these indexes, with an 1% of its GDP destined to R & D.

Bioceres

An example of this scenario is the biotechnology company Bioceres, in Rosario, which has patented fifty inventions and has developed technology to create seeds resistant to drought and salinity, becoming the first company of its specialty in Latin America to be quoted on Wall Street and the third in Argentina, after Mercado Libre (2007) and Globant (2014).

The company is part of this investment commitment in R&D to lead the agriculture that Argentina has proposed and shows that the investment pays off. Bioceres was born in the crisis of 2001 and its owners chose Rosario as their headquarters, which offered specialists in agronomy, biotechnology, biology and finance, but was also located in the agricultural heart of Argentina. They were installed on land that the National Council for Scientific Research gave them free of charge for 20 years and launched an investment of more than 40 million euros per year, partly subsidized by the Ministry of Science of Argentina and with financing from the Union European and Spain.

The company develops three major fields of action:

Seed Biotechnology, developing integrated products that combine biotechnological events, germplasm and biological treatments of seeds in order to generate improvements in crop productivity. Agroindustrial Biotechnology, focusing on the production of enzymes with industrial application and / or microbial fermentation solutions for a variety of industries, and Research and Development Services, focusing primarily on providing avant-garde biotechnological capabilities and specialized know-how, to facilitate collaborations aimed at obtaining and developing technologies in areas of interest and, to a lesser extent, to provide R & D services to third parties.

The theoretical support of Bioceres is social responsibility and sustainability, which is summarized by them in three maxims:

Produce more with less: Global agriculture must meet an unprecedented demand for food and fuel, with scarcer natural resources and less dependence on fossil fuels.
Using renewable resources, industrial biotechnology offers a sustainable alternative to petrochemicals, saving the planet between 1.000 and 2.500 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030.
"Low carbon" agriculture integrates technologies such as biotechnological events, plant breeding, and protection and nutrition of bio-based crops to increase their yield and reduce the environmental impact caused by traditional agriculture.

For four years Bioceres tests its seeds in pilot fields. It then requires the approval of various public bodies within Argentina and in the countries to which it intends to export the seed, or the grains that will be produced from it. Bioceres has already received regulatory approval from the authorities of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Argentine Republic, for its drought tolerant HB4 soy product. This approval is the first of its kind worldwide for a drought tolerance product in soybean cultivation.

In six seasons of field trials, in multiple locations in Argentina and the United States, as in three years of regulatory trials in the field, the HB4 soybean event has shown increases in productivity of up to 14% under different stress conditions. observed in production areas, including different levels of water deficits.

Source: Blueberrieschile.cl - Blueberriesconsulting.com