After the news that was released yesterday about the Brazil’s approval of drought-tolerant transgenic wheat flour developed by Bioceres, Gustavo Grobocopatel, Argentine businessman who is based in Uruguay is one of the founders of that company came out to highlight the news as a “historical milestone “.
In a video made public, Grobocopatel explained the importance of approval by the Brazilian authorities: “The approval of HB4 by the Brazilian government is a milestone in the life of Bioceres. Beyond that HB4 manages to increase yields with and without droughts, so fundamental in these times of climate change, it challenges us in other ways. In principle, if we are capable of being leaders, Today’s leadership requires not only having technology, but also being part of global knowledge networks, create or modify rules, institutions, beliefs “.
What is Brazil’s approval all about?
The development, 100% Argentine and product of the public-private collaboration of more than 18 years between Bioceres and the research group of the Instituto de Agrobiotecnología del Litoral (Coniciet-UNL) had already obtained conditional approval from Brazil, the largest individual buyer of the cereal, last year.
The HB4 wheat varieties have a sunflower gene incorporated that increases tolerance to drought conditions, reducing yield losses due to water deficit.
The approval in Brazil confirms what the Argentine authorities had ruled: HB4 wheat is safe for the environment and for human and animal health.
Nevertheless, Brazilian mills analyze going to court to stop this approval. The Brazilian Association of the Wheat Industry (Abitrigo), warned about this possibility.
“Unfortunately, Brazil will be known as the first country to approve the use of transgenic wheat in the world.“. The measure was approved by the National Biosafety Technical Commission (Ctnbio),” they said from the entity.
The Chronicler-RIPE
