Origin Agritech Ltd. (SEED) stock prices were up by 29.22% some time after market trading commenced on July 12th, 2021, bringing the price per share up to USD$11.63 early on in the trading day.
Exclusive Rights Agreement
July 12th, 2021 saw the company announce that it had entered into an exclusive rights agreement with the Biology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, in regard to its proprietary drought resistant GMO trait. The agreement will see the company gain exclusive global rights to the GMO trait for the entire duration of the patent. The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs approved the drought tolerance corn for production trials, representing the fourth stage in a five stage process to receive a bio-safety certificate.
Drought Resistant Traits
With the company already having successfully converted its elite corn hybrids into drought resistant traits, which express excellent performance under water stress conditions throughout the growing period. Multi year experiments have indicated drought tolerance corn yield that is 9.2 to 16.2% higher than non-GMO corn under water stress conditions. In the case of irrigation, the GMO enhanced corn increases water use efficiency by 33-47%.
Approval for Hybrid Corn Breeds
July 8th, 2021 had seen the company announce its approval from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for four of its new hybrid corn breeds. This move has seen the company expand its product pipeline and increase its competitiveness in the Chinese corn seed market. The company also has GMO enhanced versions of the newly approved hybrids that are currently in the approval pipeline.
Scope of Approval
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently increased the national standards required for the approval of corn and rice varieties, thus further promoting further innovation in germplasm development. Being on of the few participating companies in the Green Pass program, the company is in a unique position to streamline the approval process, resulting in the submission of more hybrids for approval per year. This will, in turn, strengthen the company’s ability to add multiple new hybrids to market annually, which will include many GMO enhanced hybrids.
Future Outlook for SEED
Armed with the recent development of its product pipeline, SEED is poised to push for the accelerated commercialization and effective proliferation of its corn hybrids in the Chinese market space. Current and potential investors are hopeful that management will continue to leverage the resources at their disposal to facilitate significant and sustained increases in shareholder value.
