Inari Sees More Potential in Seed

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

The increases in farm productivity over the past century have been staggering. It can cause people to wonder how much more unlocked potential is out there in our agricultural systems. Inari is one company that is confident that improvements in seed genetics still have a long ways to go. Here’s CEO Ponsi Trivisvavet.

Trivisvavet… “We haven't actually pushed the potential of genetics that much at all over the past 30 years. And if he looked at the fact over the past 30 years, the yield increase has to be less than 1% a year, despite $2 billion a year invested in breeding. In fact, we're quite far behind in terms of what the full potential of the seeds could be.”

But what is meant by seed potential? Trivisvavet says they look at genetic potential in three different ways.

Trivisvavet… “The potential is the productivity. In other words, yield. Second one is the environment. So the potential to take lists resources in terms of border and potential in terms of taking less chemical nitrogen fertilizer. So we pretty much, when we say potential for Inari we focus on those things.”

Inari is focused on multiplex gene editing, which allows them to manipulate multiple genes in order to develop seed that can realize this potential.