Know Hub Chile and UC Riverside sign agreement to commercialize plant varieties

The national corporation that seeks to strengthen the technology management capabilities of its member institutions signed an agreement with the US university that leads research and breeding in citrus, an industry that is growing rapidly in Chile.

Know Hub Chile—a corporation that seeks to turn its members’ research results into science-based ventures, products and services—and the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) reached an agreement to commercialize plant varieties from both institutions, promoting them to potential partners as part of their portfolios of licensable technologies. The alliance is part of a broader goal shared by both organizations: driving the development and growth of innovation and entrepreneurship in Latin America for the benefit of society (almost half of UC Riverside’s 23,000 students are Latino).

“UC Riverside is a strategic ally for our country, and particularly for Know Hub Chile and its member universities and research centers. The relationship between California and Chile goes back a long way, and one of its cornerstones has been agricultural production and its related technologies. UC Riverside’s predecessor was founded in 1907, when the University of California created the Citrus Experiment Station to support the needs of Southern California’s growing citrus industry through research, production and the development of new varieties. Today, the industry’s total economic impact in one of the most prosperous states in the US exceeds USD 7 billion,” explains Javier Ramírez, Executive Director of Know Hub Chile.

Today, UC Riverside’s Citrus Variety Collection is a kind of Noah’s Ark for these species: it holds two trees of each of more than a thousand citrus varieties, including oranges, lemons, mandarins, clementines and grapefruits. This heritage is used to tackle diseases and improve commercial citrus varieties. UC Riverside also has a long tradition in avocado breeding. In fact, just a few kilometers from Riverside lies the birthplace of the Hass avocado, a variety patented in 1935 by Rudolph Hass that accounts for 99% of the 150,000 tons of avocados Chile exports every year.

“We see a great opportunity for plant varieties developed in Chile that meet the needs of the US industry. Our alliance with Know Hub Chile allows us to include Chilean varieties in our portfolio, which is highly visible to the country’s largest producers and grower associations,” said Dr. Rosibel Ochoa, Associate Vice Chancellor for Technology Partnerships at UC Riverside.

In Chile, between the Coquimbo and O’Higgins regions, the citrus industry is growing steadily, largely in response to water scarcity. Over the last decade, the planted area has expanded to more than 17,000 hectares and exports have tripled to nearly 300,000 tons, with North America (mostly the United States) as the main destination. And the industry should keep growing: last August, Chile and China signed a preliminary agreement to open the Chinese market to Chilean citrus.

As for avocados, while in 2012 Chile was the world’s second-largest exporter of “green gold” after Mexico, it was overtaken by Peru the following year. Colombia is also becoming a strong competitor. In terms of exports, the 2018–2019 season (144,000 tons) was 9% lower than the previous one (157,000 tons). The industry sees the need to improve production through genetics and rootstocks to raise yields as one of its challenges.
Specifically, UC Riverside’s Office of Technology Partnerships and Know Hub Chile will draw on each other’s experience in their regions and varieties, support each other in licensing negotiations and advise one another. The agreement should make it easier both to introduce varieties developed by Know Hub’s members in the United States and to bring UC Riverside varieties to Chile. This specific agreement is part of a broader collaboration between the two institutions.
Know Hub’s members are the Universidad Austral, Universidad Católica del Maule, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Talca, Universidad de Los Lagos, Universidad del Bío-Bío and Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM); the Centro de Estudios en Alimentos Procesados (CEAP); the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA) and the Biomedical Neuroscience Institute (BNI Chile).