Brazil: Planting of transgenic sugarcane almost doubles in the new crop

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Center for Sugarcane Technology (CTC) estimates that the area planted with transgenic sugarcane resistant to the borer will practically double in Brazil’s new crop, which started this month in the center-south, as the sector is strengthened to invest in more productivity and sees biotechnology more available.

The leading sugarcane science company, which between 2017 and 2018 had the world’s first genetically modified sugarcane approved for commercial use by regulators in Brazil and abroad, estimates that Bt varieties will be on 70,000 hectares in the 2022/23 harvest, up from 37,000 in the just-ended season in the center-south.

Considering the total sugar cane area in Brazil, of 8.2 million hectares in the last harvest (2021/22), genetically modified sugar cane will still occupy a small relative area because the multiplication of varieties adapted to different soil types is not as fast as in the case of transgenic soy and corn seeds.

But, already five years since the first approvals for the use of transgenic cane resistant to insect attack, and with four commercial varieties that have confirmed results in the field, the expectation is for a faster advance from now on, according to the evaluation of an executive from CTC, which has sector groups such as Raízen, Copersucar, São Martinho, and BNDESPar among its shareholders.

“The producer first wants to see to believe and needs to have the availability of seedlings to grow. Now, having seedlings and results, the two things allow him to leverage,” said Luiz Paes, commercial director of CTC, in an interview with Reuters.

Even today, the CTC is the only company in the world to have genetically modified sugarcane technology on a commercial scale.

Paes explained that the first variety launched required planting in very good soil and that new transgenic canes placed on the market can already be planted in areas with more “restrictive” or bad soils, which stimulates adoption.

The borer-resistant cane is considered an important ally of the producer. The CTC estimates that the insect generates losses of R$5 billion (US$1.1 billion) per year to the Brazilian industry, considering losses in agricultural and industrial productivity, sugar quality, and costs with insecticides.

“In this area (with transgenic cane), the loss from the borer will be limited,” emphasized Paes.

The CTC is also researching transgenic cane resistant to herbicides and believes that the product may soon be available. “Possibly, RR cane in two more harvests will be ready for launching,” said Paes, pointing out that the product would need to go through the whole regulatory rite, such as approval by the biosafety body CTNBio.

The executive commented that Brazilian mills’ adoption of the technology goes from Paraná State in the country’s South to the Northeast and that CTC already has around 170 clients, which account for most of the country’s milling.

According to him, considering that the sector generally lives in a better financial situation than in the past, amid good prices for sugar and ethanol, the expectation is for more investments in the renovation of sugarcane fields, which benefits CTC, which charges royalties for the technology.

“The improvement in the sector helps us a lot,” he said, adding that when the economic situation is bad, the producer reduces the renovation rate of the sugarcane fields, for example.

He commented that the CTC usually has a market share of about 40% of the cane areas replanted annually. About 15% of sugarcane, a semi-perennial crop, is renewed annually.

LAUNCHING

Meanwhile, the CTC is preparing new releases of conventional and super-productive varieties.

For the next harvest (2023/24), the new 10,000 series product should be available, which promises productivity of around 14 to 16 tons of sugar per hectare (TAH), an increase of approximately 30% over the varieties currently available.

Considering the average productivity of the center-south of Brazil, the largest sugarcane region in the world, this index is even more expressive.

“For comparison purposes, we’re talking about a center-south average below 10 tons per hectare in the last harvest, which had bad conditions due to drought,” said Paes, noting that the region manages a yield under normal weather conditions above 10 TAH.

To reach these objectives, CTC has invested over the last years in Research & Development to the tune of R$1 billion, advancing new biostatistics tools that provide a better choice of parents to be used in crossbreeding among the over 5,000 sugarcane varieties in its germplasm bank, the largest in the world.

According to the commercial director, at some point, these varieties with greater productive potential may have transgenic technologies added to them, which would take a few years after the launching of the cane, strengthening the product even more.