Bayer Buys Majority Stake In CRISPR Edited Crops Company For “Farm-To-Fuel” Scheme

The following report is from AgFunder Tech News:

The remaining 35% of CoverCress will remain with agribusiness Bunge and energy company Chevron U.S.A., according to a shareholders agreement signed by the two companies and Bayer.

The deal will enable CoverCress to further commercialize its namesake winter oilseed product into a cover crop that can provide lower carbon fuel feedstock to the renewable fuel industry while also bringing farmers another source of revenue during the growing season.

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Why It Matters:

The deal marks an exit for CoverCress’s founders and early investors, who include Innova Memphis, Middleland Capital, Fulcrum Global Capital, Prelude Ventures, St. Louis Arch Angels, REG Ventures — the subsidiary of US biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group (REG), and Prolog Ventures. It’s unclear what the valuation was — the company’s last Series B1 round closed on $8 million.

While cover cropping is still relatively rare in the US, it’s on the rise and the government wants to double cover crop acreage to 30 million acres by 2030 under a new Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation program. Given there’s about 250 million acres of cropland in the US, there’s still a long way to grow from there.

The benefits of planting CoverCress go beyond the well-documented ability to improve soil health and reduce erosion by keeping land planted in the off-season; CoverCress is also a cash crop.

Derived from pennycress, a plant native to North America, and thanks to some CRISPR-based gene-editing, CoverCress has multiple uses. Oil extracted from the plant’s grain can be made into a lower carbon renewable diesel; it can also be used as high-protein meal for animal feed. Both uses can bring additional revenue to farmers’ coffers while also providing carbon sequestration benefits.

Bayer, Bunge, and Chevron have all previously invested CoverCress and helped the company get “buy-in” from the entire “farm-to-fuel” supply chain. Via its Leaps by Bayer investment arm, Bayer has enabled CoverCress to do more developments around gene-editing technologies. Bunge and Chevron, meanwhile, have supported the process of turning oilseed into renewable diesel.

The collaboration between all three companies stands to give CoverCress the resources needed to further develop and commercialize its product. The timing of the deal couldn’t be more appropriate. Recent heatwaves in parts of the world along with calls for greater food security have increased the urgency for new crop solutions.

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

I have detailed in other reports gene-editing for crops and food is the wave of the future. If you thought the current conventional GMOs were bad enough, it will only get massively worse; especially when we once again see the big oil and gas companies, and big pharma giants, retransforming the national global food and energy supply right under everyone’s noses.

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[13] There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. [14] But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.

Ecclesiastes 5:13-14

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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