Castor cultivation firm Casterra Ag, a subsidiary of Evogene, has delivered its first shipment of castor seeds grown and processed in Kenya.
The 100-tonne delivery within Africa was a key milestone in Casterra’s expansion plan on the continent, the company said on 29 October.
Cultivated at several sites in Kenya, the castor seeds were processed at a seed production facility near Naivasha, Kenya, which started operations in August.
“Over the past year Casterra invested significant efforts in solidifying its operational infrastructure in Africa, to ensure a stable supply of castor seeds to our customers in this region,” Casterra CEO Yoash Zohar said.
The company said its focus would now be on preparing upcoming shipments.
Approximately 700ha of additional land had been planted with castor seeds in Kenya, with harvest expected later this year and into early 2025, Casterra said.
Casterra has developed its high-yielding castor bean seeds from a collection of more than 300 castor lines from over 40 different geographic and climatic regions.
The company applies advanced breeding methods using Evogene’s Generator AI tech-engine, which uses plant genomics tools to enable industrial-scale production of castor beans.
The castor is used to produce oil for use in bio-based industries, such as biofuels and biopolymers.
Evogene is a leading computational biology company based in Israel.
