Agreement expands Inari’s SEEDesign™ technology platform to wheat through InterGrain’s leading breeding program
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 22, 2022 — Inari, the SEEDesign™ company, and InterGrain, a leading cereal breeding company in Australia, today announced a strategic collaboration to dramatically improve the yield potential of wheat, enhancing the crop’s long-term viability in the face of an increasingly variable climate.
The partnership brings together InterGrain’s well-adapted Australian wheat genetics with Inari’s predictive design and multiplex gene editing capabilities, promising a future of unique and competitive products that represent a step-change in yield potential.
InterGrain prioritises the sustainability and competitive advantage of Australia’s agriculture sector. Says Chief Executive Officer Tress Walmsley, “Inari’s team brings a wealth of experience and knowledge, and InterGrain values the collaboration capability to bring our shared vision for a more sustainable future for agriculture to life.”
Inari applies data science and software engineering to create nature-positive outcomes, addressing the complex systems within plants that impact factors such as productivity and resource use efficiency.
“This collaboration with InterGrain is a critical next step in Inari’s mission to transform the crops most responsible for global food security,” says Ponsi Trivisvavet, chief executive officer at Inari. “Our SEEDesign platform has the ability to transform any crop in any geography. Expanding not only into wheat but also into a new continent presents an exciting opportunity to broaden the reach and impact of our cutting-edge technology.”
Together, InterGrain and Inari are targeting a 10-15 percent increase in wheat yield potential, in addition to more efficient use of inputs.
“This is an exciting opportunity for both Australian growers and InterGrain with the technology having the capacity to dramatically improve grower on-farm profitability through the delivery of significantly higher yielding varieties across a range of grain growing environments,” adds Walmsley. “The genetic advancements available within our future varieties will ensure Australian growers’ competitive market advantages are maintained.”
The integration of this new breeding technology will meet Australian regulatory requirements.
For more information, visit InterGrain.com and Inari.com
About InterGrain
As one of the leaders in cereal breeding in Australia, InterGrain offers market leading wheat, barley and oat varieties for growers. Our highly successful wheat and barley breeding programs, and our new oat breeding program, are designed to target the major cereal growing regions of Australia. Our vision is to support the competitive advantage and sustainability of the Australian agriculture sector.
Our focus is breeding market leading varieties that meet grower and end-user customer requirements. We are globally recognised for our proven capability in the delivery of quality malting barleys and udon noodle wheats.
InterGrain’s shareholders are the WA State Government and GRDC. InterGrain employs 55+ staff and has offices in Perth and Horsham. We also have marketing staff based in Northam, Adelaide, Dalby and Wagga Wagga.
About Inari
Inari is embracing diversity to build a new, more sustainable food system using unsurpassed technology to unlock the full potential of seed. Through its SEEDesign™ platform, Inari unlocks new possibilities to bring step-change products to market. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2016, Inari is based in Cambridge, Mass., with additional sites in West Lafayette, Ind., and Ghent, Belgium. Inari is a growing team of more than 200 employees, leveraging AI and multiplex gene editing technology to meet the food system needs of the future. To learn more, visit Inari.com.
Contacts:
Ash Brooks, InterGrain
+61.476.020.451
abrooks@intergrain.com
Emily Negrin, Inari
+1.612.860.5925
enegrin@inari.com