ISRAEL: Israeli firm says it has developed technology that will boost global crop yields without genetic modification

Record ID: 397937

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli firm says it has developed technology that will boost global crop yields without genetic modification
  • Date: 25th November 2013
  • Summary: MOSHAV SARONA, ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) LARGE CORN GROWN USING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED BY ISRAELI AGRITECH COMPANY "KAIIMA" LOCATED NEAR A SMALLER REGULAR COR MORE OF CORNS LOCATED NEAR CORN PLANTS IN LAB SIGN IN KAIIMA HEADQUARTERS READING IN ENGLISH: "KAIIMA'S MISSION IS TO HELP FEED THE WORLD AND ENERGIZE IT BY INTRODUCING NEW VARIETIES OF KEY AGRICULTURAL CROPS - SPECIFI
  • Embargoed: 10th December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Environment,General,Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA5L82I8SCL2Z7GKZ2T3NK0QJ9N
  • Story Text: Seed technology firm Kaiima Bio-Agritech says it has developed a way to greatly speed up the multiplication of the genome of crops, known as genome doubling, without changing their DNA, or genetic fingerprint.
    Genome doubling is a naturally occurring phenomenon in the evolution of plants where, over time, two species become one with a single genome comprising the strongest features of each parent. The weakest genes fall away, and the result is a plant with stronger genetic characteristics.
    Kaiima scientists liken the process to a piece of string thickened into a rope by adding more fibres of the same material, making it stronger and more durable. In agriculture, they say it has meant enhancing seeds so that they produce more plentiful and robust crops.
    Kaiima has kept secret how it has produced the phenomenon in the lab, but the company says it has filed a number of patents worldwide. Independent experts contacted by Reuters declined to comment on the work, saying they did not have enough details.
    In a tour of Kaiima's experimental crop fields in northern Israel, company officials displayed examples of what they say are crops improved by its new technique.
    Doron Gal, Kaiima's chief executive officer, says that by 2050, farmers will need to meet the "daunting challenge" of producing 70 percent more food than they do currently to sustain a growing world population.
    Kaiima, the Hebrew word for sustainability, said that by 2016 it expects to be able to deliver to growers the basis for producing seeds for enhanced wheat, corn and rice for food and castor for bio-fuel and bio-polymer production.
    Israel is considered a world leader in agricultural technology development with irrigation techniques, hot houses and computerised animal feeding systems among leading exported products, the Israel Export Institute said.
    Income from agritech exports in 2011 amounted to $3.4 billion, out of a total of $91.7 billion in Israeli exports for that year, according to official figures.
    Kaiima, founded in 2007, said in September that it had raised some $65 million in equity from international investors. It does not have any plans for an IPO in the foreseeable future.
    He added that Kaiima's plan is to use the funding to finance its operation through 2016, when it will be able to bring its product to the market and produce seeds in a similar price to regular seeds.
    Genome doubling evolves in nature, but only over thousands of years. Scientists have been trying since the 1940s to speed up the process but had not been able to avoid damage to a crop's core characteristics.
    Gal said Kaiima had managed to achieve a crop's stability by respecting the integrity of its original DNA. Kaiima says it expects that its technology will result in an initial 25 percent improvement in crop yields.
    Asked by Reuters about Kaiima's breakthrough claim, five experts in the field of agricultural genetics at leading Israeli academic institutions declined to comment, saying they did not have enough information about the company's work.
    One scientist confirmed Gal's statement that attempts to speed up genome doubling had been tried for decades but added that neither he nor any other researcher he knew of had managed to unlock the secret for doing it successfully.
    Stronger plants have been developed during genome doubling attempts in the past, but Gal said their lack of genetic stability meant they could not produce seeds for subsequent generations.
    "This is a process that was attempted countless times over the last decades because it is so successful in nature but invariably, the results were not very efficient, not very effective because the (artificial triggering) process damaged the inherent DNA, the original plant DNA and the result was plants without seeds, plants that may be bigger and stronger but without any yields and without genetic stability," Gal said.
    "We found a new technology that lets us double the genome, get all the benefits of the stronger plant but maintaining the integrity of the DNA, of the original plant DNA, we protect it throughout the whole process. And when you do that then all the good things fall into place-the plant maintains its fertility and full seed set, you can see later here in our rice prots. It maintains its genetic stability and you have a healthy plant, strong plant to work with," he added.
    Kaiima's main centre is based in a cluster of portable cabins in a farming community in northern Israel's agricultural heartland. The company has taken over a number of fields at various locations in the area for its crop experiments.
    In its rice crop trial, Kaiima planted seed variants and breeders picked out the best results to continue laboratory work on the most successful strains.
    Alon Lerner, Kaiima's senior breeder, displayed an enhanced yield of bigger plants and grains. He said they had received the same amount of water and nutrition as crops to which the technology had not been applied.
    "For the same amount of money or for the same resources that the farmer will put into the soil, if I'm comparing the old variety that this farmer used to grow and the new generation the Kaiima technology, this farmer will get much higher yield and of course much higher income," Lerner said.
    Kaiima's recent injection of cash has come from three new investors: Horizons Ventures, which manages the private technology investments of Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing, the World Bank's private sector arm International Finance Corp (IFC) and Infinity Group, a China-focused private equity fund.
    It also received new funds from existing investors that include DFJ, DFJ-Tamir Fishman, Mitsui, KPCB, Oberlee and Musea Ventures.
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