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PLANT HEALTH
After obtaining regulatory ap- proval for commercial cultivation from the Office of the Gene Technol- ogy Regulator (OGTR) last year, the modified safflower crops are now ready to roll out across the country. GO Resources is targeting farm- ers who currently grow canola, sorghum, rice and cotton, offering SHO safflower for both the agro- nomic benefits and also a market return for the safflower crop. “We’ve done some intensive market research on the canola and chickpea returns and gross margins per hectare, and saf- flower will be as good or better,” says Michael Kleinig, CEO and Managing Director of GO Resour- ces. “It’s very hard to incentivise a farmer to change crops, so we need to target the sophisticated farmer who will see not only the benefits, but also the returns. “As the oil is going into spe- cialty markets where we can sell at larger margins, the idea will be to go into long-term contracts with farmers at a farmgate price per tonne that they know they’re going to get year in, year out. We’re offering a superior product that nobody else can produce.” A MARKET-READY OPTION FOR FARMERS GO Resources is planning its first large-scale market develop- DID YOU KNOW $1.4 billion in income has been gained by Australian farmers with access to crop biotechnology over the last twenty years ?
“This is definitely a world first, there is no other super-high oleic acid in any crop other than our safflower,” says Dr Wood. “At CSIRO, we’ve developed gen- etically-modified cotton and canola, but they are over-expres- sion technologies, inserting new genes. Creating super-high oleic safflower is a unique process where we’re stopping safflower genetic pathways from working.” The oil produced by the seeds, known as super-high oleic saf- flower oil (or SHOSO, for short), is now the only plant-based source of oil with an oleic content high enough for use in high-value industrial applications. As it is sourced from a renewable crop and ecologically-friendly, SHOSO could soon challenge fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources in a global market for industrial oils that is worth an estimated $30 billion per year. Oleic acids give the oil prop- erties that make it suitable for industrial uses – the more oleic acid, the fewer thermal or func-
tional problems in the oil. As a comparison, current high-oleic sunflower oil takes about 13 hours before it breaks down when heated at 100 degrees. SHOSO takes 53 hours. “There’s no plant that can sup- ply oil that pure anywhere – the only way to get these levels of purity is to chemically synthesise the oil, which is a very expensive process,” says Dr Wood. “Phar- maceutical-grade oleic acid is al- most 100 per cent pure, but it is expensive to produce. If you can make something that’s 92 per cent pure and just squeeze it out of a plant, that’s quite a valuable starting point.” THE ROAD TO COMMERCIALISA- TION In 2013, GO Resources was founded to commercialise SHOSO and ob- tained the exclusive worldwide li- cence from CSIRO. The company will manage the whole supply chain – from selecting the variety and contracting growers right through to selling the oil.
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