Evofuel, SLC Agricola collaborate on castor bean in Brazil

Evogene, a leading plant genomics company specializing in enhancing crop productivity for the food, feed and biofuel industries, and SLC Agricola S.A., one of Brazil’s largest landowners and agriculture businesses, recently announced the signing of a collaboration agreement between SLC and Evofuel Ltd., Evogene’s wholly-owned subsidiary, for the commercial production of Evofuel developed castor bean varieties in Brazil, expected to take place during 2016. Evofuel focuses on the development of high yielding castor bean seeds as a second-generation feedstock for the growing biofuel and other industrial markets.

Under the terms of the agreement, Evofuel will provide SLC with seeds of its proprietary castor bean varieties and SLC will be responsible for growing the crop on its farms in northeast Brazil. The resulting castor bean grain will be sold to local oil producers to address the industry need for castor oil. The agreement provides for the allocation between SLC and Evofuel of revenues from sales of castor bean grain.

Commercial sales of castor bean grain under the agreement are expected to take place during 2016, prior to which the two companies will cooperate on scale up and pre-commercial activities for grain production, as well as development of best practices for agronomic management of castor bean in SLC’s commercial production units.

Aurélio Pavinato, CEO of SLC Agrícola stated, “The successful implementation and adoption of castor bean as a second crop solution opens up new opportunities for crop rotation in areas, such as northeast region of Brazil, allowing SLC the potential to diversify our crops and improve the resulting farm economics. In addition, having a commercially viable solution for large scale production of castor bean provides SLC with the opportunity to tap into the castor oil market, providing local crushers with a more consistent supply of grain for this high-priced and multi-use oil.”

Assaf Oron, General Manager of Evofuel stated, “This agreement is a significant step forward in our three year relationship with SLC, and furthermore importantly represents for Evofuel our first commercial arrangement for sale of Evofuel developed seed from our overall castor bean enhancement development efforts.”

Ofer Haviv, CEO and President of Evogene added, “We are proud that SLC, with its high-end agricultural production expertise, has chosen to adopt Evofuel’s castor bean seed on a commercial scale, and we believe this relationship provides a strong basis for the market development of castor bean as a sustainable and economically viable feedstock solution for the immediate market of lubricants and biopolymers, and as production capacity increases, for addressing the broader biofuel market.”

The recently signed collaboration agreement follows three years of successful field trials. These trials demonstrated the suitability and economic benefits of growing Evofuel developed castor bean varieties during the drier season on a rotation basis with soybean for production of oil feedstock for biofuels and other industrial uses.