agricultural
China approves GM soy from Argentina
An Argentine farmer shows soybeans. In 2022, China approved a genetically modified soy variant from Argentina. Photo: Martin Zabala/Zuma Press/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
For Argentina, soy is the most important export good, China is the world’s largest importer. Now the genetically modified variety HB4 has been approved from there.
China has approved a genetically modified soy variant from Argentina. This means that the drought-resistant soybean variety HB4 from the Argentine company Bioceres can be imported to China in the future, as the company announced on Friday.
At the New York technology exchange Nasdaq, the papers from Bioceres then increased by around 25 percent.
The scientist Rachel Chan discovered the crucial gene in sunflowers and used it to develop the new soy variant, which copes with drought much better than conventional types. Argentina’s agriculture has been suffering from severe drought for years.
Soy is Argentina’s most important export commodity. HB4 is already approved in the US, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Paraguay. Together, these countries account for almost 85 percent of global soybean production. China is the world’s largest importer of soy.