July 29, 2022, 18:30 PM
July 29, 2022, 18:30 PM
The Association of Oilseed and Wheat Producers (Anapo) announced that will present to the Committee on Food Biotechnology an application for the approval of the transgenic event HB4 in wheatwith tolerance to drought, “to mitigate the productive and economic losses of the last agricultural campaigns”.
“We have a difficult situation due to a campaign seriously affected by the droughtwhich will imply a substantial reduction in the production of this cereal, which is so important for the basic basket of Bolivians,” said the president of Anapo, Fidel Flores, during the National Wheat Day, celebrated in the Santa Cruz municipality of Okinawa, wheat capital of the country.
“In this scenario, we producers have decided to make efforts so that the solutions reach the field and, for this reason, we will present our application for the approval of the HB4 event in wheat, with tolerance to drought, developed by the company Bioceres from Argentina”, Flores advanced.
Data from Anapo show that the cultivated hectares of wheat in Santa Cruz reached 108,000 in 2019, 118,000 in 2020, 129,000 in 2021 and 119,000 this year. Due to the effects of the drought, however, the yield has been reduced in recent yearsgoing from an average of 1.97 tons per hectare in 2020, to 1.44 tons per hectare in 2021 and to 1 or 1.2 tons per hectare in this management.
This is the second transgenic event that Anapo presents to the Food Biosafety Committee this year. The first was HB4 from drought-resistant soybeans, which will be tested during the next three agricultural seasons.
Fidel Flores pointed out that is in the hands of the government not only guarantee food sovereignty and reduce the country’s dependency on food smuggling, but decide what the agricultural sector will produce.
Eduardo Ibáñez, Secretary of Economic Development of the Departmental Autonomous Government of Santa Cruz, He regretted that this year is not good for the producers, “and that the drought and smuggling have slowed down the momentum that the sector was experiencing”. He added that, as the Government, they will continue to support them in the effort to reverse the situation.
The National Wheat Day event was attended by more than 2,000 peoplebetween producers, technicians and municipal and departmental authorities, in addition to the presence of the general manager of the Food Production Support Company, Franklin Flores.
After proposing the construction of a productive pact for food sovereignty and the economic reactivation of the countrythe president of Anapo stressed that the demonstrations of technological advances, with new varieties of wheat, technological packages from commercial houses, soil management and base and foliar fertilization, make it easier for producers to adopt technologies that can help them improve management of the crop.
