Regulators around the world are becoming more comfortable with drought-resistant crops as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine stoke food-security fears, outweighing qualms about eating genetically-modified grains.
That’s the view of Federico Trucco, chief executive officer of Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp., a biotechnology firm seeking clearance to sell and grow GMO wheat in a number of countries.
So far, only the company’s home country Argentina has given approval to plant its GMO wheat strain, called HB4. But Bioceres is “relatively close” to attaining incremental clearance from farming superpower Brazil and also expects US approval as soon as this year, Trucco said in an interview Thursday.
Modified corn and soybeans are used widely in food manufacturing and for feed, but historically, there’s been more resistance for modified strains of wheat and rice that humans would consume with less processing. Now, consumers are becoming less sensitive to certain kinds of GMOs.
“People can tell the difference between technologies that enable synthetic chemistries versus technologies that just preserve environmental resources,” Trucco said.
