Castor cultivation firm Casterra Ag, a subsidiary of Evogene, has signed an agreement to supply castor seed varieties to one of the world’s leading energy companies for use in biofuel production.
Initially, the agreement would involve the supply of castor seeds and the provision of technical supply for growing castor in specific African countries, the company said on 19 January.
In addition, the partnership would provide the opportunity for long-term castor cultivation with the un-named energy supplier with potential expansion into additional territories on the African continent.
“We strongly support biofuel production based on castor oil… This agreement has significant potential for future growth,” Casterra CEO Eyal Ronen said.
According to a report, The Eco-Efficiency of Castor Supply Chain: A Greek Case Study, published in the Agriculture journal on 2 February 2022, oil derived from the castor bean has a number of advantages as a source for biofuel compared to other vegetable oils, including its higher proportion of energy-rich, fatty hydroxy acids, its low melting point and solidification points, and the most stable viscosity of any vegetable-derived oils.
In addition, the report pointed out that as a crop, castor poses minimal competition for land with conventional food crops or edible oils due to its hardiness and tolerance to stress, meaning it can be cultivated on marginal land areas which otherwise would not be used.
Casterra has developed its high-yielding castor bean seeds from a collection of over 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.
Evogene is a computational biology company based in Israel.
