Argentina, the first country in the world authorizing a Chinese soybean transgenic trait

February 28th. Yesterday, the Ag-Industry Secretariat published its Order 17/2019 releasing the GMO trait DBN 09004-6, that confers to the soybean crops tolerance to glyphosate and glufosinate-ammonium herbicides.

 

The releasing was announce by President Macri himself in occasion of his meeting with de Soybean National Table, a workspace of this oilseed value chain.

 

This trait was developed by Chinese Beijing Da-Bei-Nong Technology Group (DBN), a company that is work in cooperation with local Bioceres Group, the biotech start-up that developed the HB4 technology, to confer crops drought tolerance. The goal of both companies is to offer soybean seeds containing drought-tolerance, insect-tolerance, and herbicide-tolerance traits.

 

The Order 17/2019 clear out that soybean seeds containing DBN 09004-06 trait will not able to commercialize until Chinese government authorizes its import.

 

“It is the first time that a third country authorizes a GMO trait developed in China for a commercial crop. This shows the excellent relationship that both nations have in the food, farming and biotechnology sectors”, the secretary of Ag-Industry, Mr. Luis Miguel Etchevehere said in a public statement.

 

The solicitude of the release was made by Rosario Ag-Biotechnology Institute (Indear), the I+D branch of the Bioceres Group. It is expected that China releases the HB4 technology for soybean, now that its trait was released by Argentina.

 

“The governments from Argentina and China hold a bilateral group focused in biotechnology and biosecurity, where both sides work for these technologies come to farmers as soon as possible, avoiding eventual trade obstacles”, the secretary added.

 

Sources of www.eFarmNewsAr.com told, off-the-record, that a DBN trait to confer soybean crop insect-tolerance is already being evaluated at field essays. Meanwhile, a source from Bioceres said that HB4 soybean trait will be at field evaluation since June (when the growing season starts), according to the Chinese regulatory procedures; this would be the last stage before the Chinese Agriculture Ministry decides its commercial approval.