Collaboration Agreement between Evogene Subsidiary and SLC Agricola

Evogene Ltd. is a leading plant genomics company specializing in enhancing crop productivity for the food, feed and biofuel industries. Under the terms of the agreement, they will provide SLC with seeds of its proprietary castor bean varieties.

 

SLC Agricola S.A., which is one of Brazil’s largest landowners and agriculture business concerns, is to grow the crop on its farms in northeast Brazil. The castor bean grain grown on their farms will be sold to local oil producers to meet industrial needs for castor oil with commercial sales of the grain expected to begin during 2016. Aurelio Pavinato, the CEO of SLC Agricola S.A. outlined the agreement’s advantages as it facilitated the successful implementation and adoption of castor beans as a second crop thereby opening up new opportunities for crop rotation in areas, such as Brazil’s northeast region, and allowing SLC the potential to improve farm economics.

 

The recent agreement was also welcomed by Assaf Oren, general manager at Evofuel who recognized its importance for his company as it was the first commercial arrangement for the sale of Evofuel developed seed from their overall castor bean enhancement development efforts. Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s CEO in endorsing Assaf Oren’s comments expressed his confidence in the development of this latest collaboration with SLC Agricola S.A to promote the market development of castor bean as a sustainable and economically viable feedstock solution for the existing market of lubricants and biopolymers, and as production capacity increases, for addressing the broader biofuel market demand. Three years of successful field trials led to this recently signed collaboration agreement as the suitability and economic benefits of growing Evofuel-developed castor bean varieties during the drier season became apparent.