Soybeans are trading at half the value of their historic peak, which was registered 6 years ago.
China’s Ministry of Agriculture today approved drought-tolerant soybean (HB4) developed by Argentine company Bioceres after 6 years of process submission. And the company’s shares rose 15%.
This is the first time an Argentine event has received approval from the Asian giant. Besides, ands the main importer of soybeans in the world to approve this event, which includes beans, flour and lard.
Droughts-tolerant soybean was approved in 2015 by Argentina and later also by the countries with the world’s largest production of this crop, including the United States (August 2019), Brazil (May 2019), Paraguay (2019) and Canada ( 2021). These countries provide approximately 85 percent of global soybean production.
The HB4 technology was developed between the Bioceres company and the research team it leads Rachel Chan |, director of the Coastal Agrobiotechnology Institute (IAL), which belongs to the National University of the Coast (UNL) and the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET). One of the main benefits of the technology is the increase of soybean yield under drought conditions.
The approval is very important for Argentina because China represents the main importer of soybeans. In 2021, 3.7 million tonnes were exported to the Asian giant, representing 70% of total shipments, at a cost of nearly US $ 2,000 million.
Meanwhile, last year 370,000 tons of soybean oil were sold to China, representing 7% of the total, worth US $ 400 million. And in the case of soybean meal, although it is the main product exported by Argentina, it is not imported by China.
This development was also included in the cultivation of wheat. And last year the company received approval from Brazil for the sale of flour from transgenic wheat, but it has not yet been authorized for grain.
Bioceres is a publicly traded company from Rosario. It voluntarily moved its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to the Nasdaq Global Select Market on April 27 of this year.
Now, after learning of China’s approval for its transgenic soybeans, Bioceres shares have jumped more than 15%.
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Source: Clarin
