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HomePosts Tagged "GMO"
Company News, World

The Mercaris team will accelerate the development of Argus agriculture pricing and analytics in the Americas, and open up opportunities in biofuels and other agricultural inputs

Energy and commodity price reporting agency Argus has acquired Mercaris, the leading provider of sustainable agriculture prices and analytics in the US. 

Mercaris’ price assessments, analytics and forecasts for organic and non-GMO (non-genetically modified) agriculture cover organic corn, soybeans, soybean meal, wheat and other small grains, plus non-GMO corn and soybeans, as well as organic dairy markets. Its price assessments for cash crops of organic soybeans and corn adhere to the IOSCO Principles for Price Reporting Agencies and are used as the basis for physical and over-the-counter options contracts.

Besides price assessments, Mercaris provides acreage estimates, supply/demand analysis, and facilities density mapping to customers across the agriculture supply chain in the US. These include farmers, processors and retailers alongside government entities, financial and agricultural inputs companies.   

The addition of the Mercaris team will accelerate the development of Argus agriculture pricing and analytics in the Americas, and open up opportunities in biofuels and other agricultural inputs. 

Adrian Binks, Argus Media chairman and chief executive said, “We are pleased to further expand Argus agriculture capabilities in the Americas.  The development of sustainable agriculture is critical as the world embraces the transition to net zero.  The integration of Mercaris into Argus will allow us to scale our offering and provide valuable new market transparency.”

Kellee James, founder and chief executive of Mercaris added, “We are excited to become part of Argus which presents a great opportunity to leverage their trusted brand, global reach and scale with our best-in-class sustainable agriculture offering. Together, we will be able to broaden Argus agriculture insights both within the US and internationally and enhance our existing product portfolio, better serve our customers, and accelerate product development into related markets.”

The Mercaris team will accelerate the development

AgroPolicy, India, Seeds

Other crop varieties that could potentially be approved for commercial cultivation in future are BT cotton, BT brinjal and HT cotton.

The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has approved the “environmental release” of indigenously developed genetically modified (GM) Mustard Seeds. This paves the way for possible ‘commercial use of the country’s first indigenously developed GM food crop.
Prior to this, Bt cotton – the plant containing the pesticide gene from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), has been grown in India for about twenty years. The approval makes GM mustard only the second approved transgenic crop in India after Bt cotton and the first such food crop that can be commercially cultivated by farmers.
Important to note, GEAC approval is not the final call for commercial release but just a step in this direction as it still needs approvals on higher levels for the final release.
The recent approval could pave the way for increased edible mustard oil production while reducing huge import costs for edible oil. It is being said that GM Mustard or DMH-11 seeds could yield about 30 per cent more than a traditional reference mustard variety.
For the benefit of farmers, DMH-11 could reduce the use of pesticides and insecticides during farming thereby leading to better yield production. In fact, other crop varieties that could potentially be approved for commercial cultivation in future are BT cotton, BT brinjal and HT cotton.
Mustard is one of India’s most significant winter crops cultivated between mid-October and late November. It is a self-pollinating crop which is especially difficult to hybridise naturally as it cross-pollinates itself.


Other crop varieties that could potentially be

Agrotech, China, Company News

Origin is currently in trials to develop new corn varieties that have been genetically engineered to have balanced amino acid content.

Headuartered in China, Origin Agritech Limited, an agriculture technology company has recently announced that it is developing nutritionally enhanced corn using CRISPR technology.

Origin is currently in trials to develop new corn varieties that have been genetically engineered to have balanced amino acid content. If these trials are successfully completed, it will validate Origin’s next generation methodology in applying CRISPR technology to develop new corn varieties.

CRISPR gene editing does not introduce foreign DNA into the corn and as such more closely mimics gene mutations that frequently occur in nature. Additionally, the time and cost of developing genetically engineered corn using CRISPR is a fraction versus what it would be using traditional GMO technology. 

Dr Gengchen Han, Origin Agritech’s Chairman, said, “Our nutrition balanced corn trait would not only significantly reduce the need for costly additives in animal feed, it will also pave the way for many more applications of CRISPR technology.”

Origin is currently in trials to develop

Agrotech, China

The company has already successfully converted its elite corn hybrids into drought resistant traits.

Origin Agritech an agriculture technology company based in China, has announced that its drought resistant GMO trait has completed production trials and an application has been filed for biosafety certificate approval.

Through its collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Origin has already successfully converted its elite corn hybrids into drought resistant traits. The trait has expressed excellent performance under water stress conditions through the whole growing period. Multiyear experiments have shown the yield of drought tolerance corn is 9.2-16.2 per cent higher than non-GMO corn under similar conditions. Under irrigated conditions, the GMO enhanced corn increases water use efficiency by 33-47 per cent.

Dr Gengchen Han, Origin Agritech’s Chairman, said, “We are very excited to have another GMO trait pending approval for a bio-safety certificate, which is the final step in the approval process before the production license. We expect drought resistance to play a key role in the agricultural industry as it is forced to adapt to climate change disruptions globally.”

The company has already successfully converted its