What We Do
Traditional breeding such as crossing or mutation breeding, are extremely slow. It takes 12 or more years to create a new crop variety. A time we don’t have.
“We need new and better crops to face the challenges of agriculture in a shorter time and at a lower cost than existing methods. “
Plant genetic improvement applying cutting-edge technology:
We built a precision technology platform that allows us to breed new crops in record time, in only 4-5 years. To achieve it, we combine the most advanced technologies of gene editing, data science, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and growth under automated speed breeding chambers, to revolutionize and accelerate conventional and biotechnology-based plant breeding programs. In Neocrop, we are contributing to a new generation of seeds with a special focus on cereals such as wheat, with great potential to be applied to vegetables, fruit trees, and other crops of agricultural-food interest, providing farmers greater options in yield, quality and adaptation to climate change.
Our first development to validate the record-time breeding platform is being applied to wheat, the third most cultivated cereal in the world, which provides us with 20% of our proteins and calories. We are carrying out the project in partnership with Chilean and Argentinian seed companies, and supported by funds from the Chilean Ministry of Science, with the aim of increasing fiber by 10 times, a component with different health and digestion benefits. This helps also prevent overweight and obesity, two alarming problems in countries like Chile and the USA.