Soy Australia endeavours to work closely with the National Soybean Breeding Program and its commercial partners to ensure new commercial varieties are ‘fit for purpose’ and will add value and growth to the industry.

Soy Australia holds the licence for several successful varieties and, through its commercial seed production partners, ensures these licensed varieties come to market with good agronomic support. Current Soy Australia licensed varieties include Gwydir, Kuranda, New Bunya, Mossman, Bunya, Moonbi, Fraser and Snowy. 

Soy Australia works closely with Seednet, the licensee for the Hayman, Richmond and Burrinjuck varieties, to ensure effective market coverage when new varieties are brought to market.

Soy Australia’s commercialisation strategy is based on incorporating the significant business opportunities currently, and into the future, available to the Australian soybean industry. Soy Australia will work closely with all segments of the soybean supply chain establishing the requirements and benefits of the numerous end uses of Australian soybeans, communicating these and facilitating strategic linking along the whole supply chain to build a solid and dynamic industry. Soy Australia’s plan for a route to market includes all of the many end uses of soybeans including the edible, animal, industrial and aquaculture feeds, the crushers and a variety of other valuable end use markets.

Soy Australia welcomes the recent announcement by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) of continued investment in the soybean industry through the appointment of Adelaide University as the breeding partner for the National Soybean Breeding Program .  

This follows on from the previous breeding program, a partnership with GRDC, CSIRO and NSW DPI, which delivered a number of commercialised varieties that have provided both agronomic and grain quality gains to the domestic and export markets.

According to Soy Australia’s chairman, Paul Fleming, soybean breeding is vital to the growth and development of Australia’s soybean industry and he is delighted that GRDC is investing in the industry’s future.

“This renewed commitment to specialised breeding of this important legume crop is a critical component to the industry’s plan to grow the area and volume of soybeans in Australia,” said Mr Fleming. 

“Australian grown soybeans are sought after in Australia and overseas due to being non-genetically modified, high in protein and high quality,” said Mr Fleming.

“It’s vitally important for the future of the industry that we have access to varieties bred specifically for our tough Aussie climate,” he said. 

“Soy Australia looks forward to working closely with the new breeding partner to ensure high yielding, high protein and well-adapted varieties are being bred in Australia,” said Mr Fleming.

Find more information here: 

https://groundcover.grdc.com.au/grdc/announcements/grdc-invests-$3-million-in-soybean-breeding 

The growth and development of the Australian soybean industry will be underpinned by the development of new varieties through the Australian National Soybean Breeding Program (ANSB). 

This section is under development.

Implicit in the breeding program is the undertaking that all new varieties will be protected under the Plant Breeder’s Right (PBR) Act 1994 and that these varieties will have an end-point royalty applied in order to develop a revenue stream for the continuation of the breeding program. 

The soybean industry agreed in 2007 that the breeding program needed to develop a revenue stream if it was to be sustainable in the future.

As a commercial partner in the Australian Soybean Breeding Program, Soy Australia, has agreed to manage and collect end-point royalties on existing and new soybean varieties for which it is a licensee.

PBR was introduced to encourage the development of new varieties by providing for those breeders and other parties investing in the breeding program the opportunity to recoup some of their investment.  In simple terms, PBR can be seen as the seed version of patents or copyright.

Breeding new varieties can take up to 14 years from the initial recognition of potential new germplasm to the commercial release of a new variety. Thus, soybean breeding requires a high level of investment and a high level of risk for commercial companies.

End-point royalties are the method in which the breeders and commercial partners can recoup this investment and are a way for growers to continue to contribute to the development of new varieties and the sustainability of the breeding program.

End-point royalties are a payment made by the grower to use the licensed variety, and as the name suggests it is based on production of harvested grain and is paid when the harvested seed is sold by the grower. One of the main benefits of EPR is that it shares the risk of crop production between the breeder, the commercial partner and the grower.

Since January, 2013 all Soy Australia varieties sold have an end-point royalty.

More details about end-point royalties can be found on the Variety Central website.