Evogene to bring castor seeds to market after 2015

Sep 16, 2013 - Israeli biotechnology firm Evogene Ltd (TLV:EVGN) said today it was pleased with the results of three years of field trials in Brazil using its proprietary castor seeds and said it planned to start commercialisation in 2016.

The company’s unit Evofuel Ltd partnered with Brazilian agribusiness firm SLC Agricola SA (BVMF:SLCE3) to show that castor bean is an alternative feedstock for biodiesel production and other industrial applications. The partners achieved three consecutive years of successful yield results. The Evogene unit intends to initiate advanced product development and pre-commercial trials from 2014 so as to be ready for the commercialisation effort later.

Evofuel and SLC worked on a project to develop castor as a rotation crop with soybean. The sowing of castor seeds happened after the harvesting of the soybean. “Being grown during a period in which rainfall levels are typically not sufficient to cultivate other crops, castor production under this model does not compete with the production of staple crops, and provides farmers with a high value crop offering and additional revenue source,” Evogene said in the press release today.

Operating more than 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of soybean, corn and cotton, SLC is among Brazil’s major landowners. Evofuel calculates that the potential land area for economically viable castor seeds commercial production in Brazil exceeds 5 million hectares when using the soybean rotation model and SLC’s resource.

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