Agrisoma Biosciences and UPM sign long-term supply agreement

Under the deal, the two companies will grow Carinata oilseed crops with third-party farmers in Uruguay and Brazil.

Carinata is the oilseed variety Agrisoma created precisely for two roles; sustainable biofuel production in the aviation industry and to produce non-edible oil, suitable for making low carbon biofuels’ and nutritious protein for animal feed.

“Agrisoma is proud that UPM sees the value in our agricultural technology efforts and crop science that will benefit the green farming economy,” says Steve Fabijanski, Ph.D., CEO, Agrisoma.

This deal comes on the opening day of a prominent global biotechnology conference being held in Montreal to examine imminent trends impacting the world’s green-clean tech economy.

The Agrisoma-UPM agreement is a global first, where a non-food sustainable oilseed can develop into a second, low indirect land use change (ILUC) crop, thereby producing few greenhouse gas (GHG) feedstocks to produce advanced biofuels.

Commercial production of Carinata, tested in South America in 2016, has been seeded as a second crop during the winter growing season, a time when major commodity crops do not grow.

Carinata produced under these second cropping procedures provides finished fuels with a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction of more than 75% over fossil fuels. Agrisoma believes that as these strategies expand on a broader scale, GHG reductions of more than 100% are possible, providing for “carbon negative” fuels that are price competitive with fossil fuels.

Agrisoma has plans to expand production of Carinata in additional regions.

Agrisoma Biosciences Inc. is an agricultural company that has commercialized Carinata, a non-food oilseed crop designed for the sustainable production of biofuels. Agrisoma sells Carinata seed products under the resonance brand name and uses advanced crop improvement technologies to provide superior plant varieties to growers.