A delegation headed by the Deputy Chancellor of Research of University of California (UC) Riverside, Rosibel Ochoa, visited Tango Fruit's stand at Fruit Attraction to meet with Juan Cano, the president of Eurosemillas and the head of Tango Fruit. In the course of the meeting, they reviewed the milestones passed by the alliance since 1989, when the Spanish group acquired the exclusive master license of the UC patents on fruit and vegetable varieties.
Since then, the innovations of this research center and the business model consolidated by Eurosemillas have allowed them to increase the number of protected and unknown varieties of plants outside the US and in 50 other countries - including Spain - to more than 1.2 billion plants, a record number in this business.
The Vice Chancellor for Research of the University of California (UC) Riverside, Rosibel Ochoa, and the president of the Eurosemillas group, Juan Cano, at the stand of Tango Fruit in Fruit Attraction.
According to Rosibel Ochoa, this alliance is "the best bet for the internationalization of our patents and it generates a multimillion-dollar income for the university, which can be reinvested in new developments to continue being at the forefront."
"US agriculture is one of the most profitable in the world and that is largely thanks to the innovative effort made by entities such as the University of California and the Riverside campus. We invest in the Riverside and Davis campuses, with which we maintain agreements, and we export their added value products beyond their natural market, applying our particular vision of this business," said Juan Cano.
Eurosemillas is involved in the process of obtaining new varieties. It invests 1 to 3 million a year in R & D projects, not only in the UC but also in other Spanish entities. It has perfected its control and audit methods. It does not limit itself to marketing its innovations: it plans the production, analyzes the markets where its fruits or vegetables will be sold to profile its exploitation licenses, and invests in the promotion of its varieties through brands such as the Tango Fruit, which is now exhibiting at Fruit Attraction.
Riverside is one of the most important agricultural research and development centers in the world. The campus, which has more than 23,000 students, offers 101 bachelor degrees, 55 master degrees and maintains 42 professorships. In 2016 alone, it channeled an investment of 140 million dollars in research projects.
Its Experimental Agricultural Station has one of the most important citrus collections on the planet and, in its almost one hundred years of history, it has developed more than 40 varieties of oranges and mandarins, such as the late seedless Tango (registered in the EU as Tang Gold) or Gold Nugget. This center has also worked to improve other temperate and warm-climate crops, such as avocado - with the Lamb Hass or Harvest varieties - or De Paoli asparagus, all of which are highly valued by producers and by the international markets. Eurosemillas has financed a genetic improvement program for asparagus since 2007 and has several fields for testing new varieties in Andalusia.
Eurosemillas also has an identical alliance with the Davis campus, also from the University of California, which is also a world leader in plant innovations but of crops of more temperate climates, such as strawberry, peach, apples, pears, table grapes and vine, walnut, almond, and pistachio. Riverside and Davis are two of the ten large campuses that make up the University of California, which has more than 237,000 students, around 190,000 professors and researchers, indirectly employs 430,000 people, and has three well-known national laboratories. In its almost 150 years of history, up to 61 Nobel prize winners have passed through this research centers. Some of their studies have contributed more than 43 billion dollars to California's economy.
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Rafael Quilis
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