New agreement to drive soybean market
which specialises in plant genetics, has signed a new agreement
with the Iowa State University Research Foundation (ISURF) which it
is hoped will lead to the develpoment of new soybean oils with
improved health benefits.
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of the DuPont group which specialises in plant genetics, has signed a new agreement with the Iowa State University Research Foundation (ISURF) which it is hoped will lead to the development of new soybean oils with improved health benefits.
The two organisations have worked together since 1991, when Pioneer signed an agreement giving it the exclusive commercialisation rights to the oil traits developed by ISURF, and to provide them with public and private researchers via sub-licences.
Over the ten years since this initial agreement was signed, Pioneer has incorporated these healthy oil traits into a number of commercial soybean varieties, with the result that new soybean oils with improved nutritional value have been commercialised, including one with half the saturated fat of conventional soybean oil.
The new agreement means that ISURF will now be able to license the healthy soybean oil traits to other research organisations or companies for further development, making it possible for other companies to commercialise the healthy oil traits without obligation to Pioneer.
"Although public and private researchers have always been able to utilise the ISURF traits for research, Pioneer has controlled the marketing of the oil from any soybean varieties they developed," said Kenneth Kirkland, ISURF director. "Pioneer has generously agreed to let other companies develop markets with the novel traits as a way of improving the competitiveness of soybean as a source of healthy oil."
All of the traits involved in the agreement were developed by Walter Fehr, distinguished professor of agriculture and director of the Office of Biotechnology, and Earl Hammond, university professor of food science and human nutrition.
Pioneer has agreed to license its higher-yielding soybean donor germplasm with the healthy oil traits to public and private researchers for breeding purposes.
"Making these lines and cultivars available for licensing supports soybean growers who are trying to improve the competitiveness of soybeans by improving the quality of soybean composition," said Walter Fehr, professor of agriculture at ISU who helped create the healthy traits. "It means that public and private researchers can build on the efforts of Pioneer, which will save them considerable time in developing improved varieties. This is good news for soybean farmers, processors and consumers."
Pioneer will continue to license the healthy soybean oil traits from ISURF, but on a non-exclusive basis.
"We'll continue to develop and market soybean varieties with these improved oils," said Dennis Byron, Pioneer research director for oil seeds and field crops. "Our confidence in our proprietary soybean genetics allows us to do this. We hope moving to this non-exclusive agreement with ISU and making our germplasm available to other researchers will help build momentum for the US soybean grower initiative to make soybeans more competitive with other oilseed crops."
