Bioceres, “the Argentine Monsanto”, goes under amid battle between two groups of shareholders. Report: Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews
On 24 March Fernando Mécoli, a judge in the Civil and Commercial Court of Rosario, Argentina, ruled that bankruptcy proceedings should be initiated against Bioceres SA, the Argentine parent company of Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp., which markets the herbicide-tolerant GM wheat known as HB4. The story is reported by the Argentine newspaper La Nación.
The moves to make Bioceres SA insolvent were initiated last December by the food-tech company Moolec. Moolec started out as a start-up spun-off from Bioceres Crop Solutions to focus on genetically engineering animal proteins in plants – inserting pork genes into soybeans (“Piggy Sooy”) and beef genes into peas. But Moolec eventually became the main shareholder of Bioceres SA, following the removal of Federico Trucco and Manuel Sobrado from the board of directors. Although it now controls the Bioceres Group of companies, it has been trying to distance itself from the insolvency and defaults of Bioceres SA.
The court must now appoint liquidators after the judge ruled that the conditions for initiating bankruptcy proceedings had been met.
Bioceres has been torn apart by a rift between two groups of shareholders: on the one hand, Trucco, who opposes the bankruptcy, and on the other, the former Uruguayan presidential candidate, Juan Sartori, who leads Moolec. This rift has already led to legal consequences, with both sides filing complaints against each other.
While Bioceres SA and Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp. are separate legal entities, a court-ordered bankruptcy of Bioceres SA will severely impact the the GM wheat firm through ownership, credit access, and operational stability.
Company sources stated that “the imminent threat of individual enforcement actions by creditors was considered a decisive factor in the initiation of the universal bankruptcy proceedings”.
The company was founded in 2001 and has since secured several patents, including the first GM wheat seed claimed to tolerate water stress and salinity (HB4 technology), as well as being tolerant to the controversial herbicide glufosinate, which is banned in the EU due to its reproductive toxicity.
Behind the bankruptcy proceeding lies a legal storm, with debts running into millions and allegations that the Uruguayan investor Sartori of Moolec was allegedly attempting to drive Bioceres into bankruptcy in order to ‘strip it bare’.
On the other hand, Moolec, led by Sartori, argues that it was Trucco who brought the company into such dire financial straits. In a statement, the company explained that “the reasons why Bioceres SA decided to file for bankruptcy constituted a reasonable and unavoidable measure in light of the severe economic and financial deterioration evident at the close of its financial statements as at 30 June 2025, under the management of Federico Trucco”.
The firm’s collapse formally began last June, when it defaulted on the payment of US$5.31 million in bond notes (stock promissory notes). In total, its debt amounts to around US$30 million, due in July 2026, according to the Argentine Securities Market (MAV).
No need to mourn
It’s hard to know what will finally emerge from the insolvency and the legal battles around it, which some see as driven by an attempt to asset strip the ailing Bioceres by Sartori of Moolec. But even if Bioceres’ HB4 GM wheat were to go down with the parent company, there would be little to mourn.
An analysis of official government data by eminent Brazilian and Argentine researchers noted that contrary to claims by Bioceres that HB4 wheat gave higher yields than other varieties: “HB4 wheat did not yield higher than the national average. On the contrary, it yielded 17% less than the national total. Of the 12 Argentine provinces assessed, HB4 wheat produced above the average in only two (Córdoba and La Pampa), albeit with a yield difference lower than that announced by Bioceres, at 5% and 0.4% respectively. In nine provinces, the yield was lower, a fact not reported by the company to the regulatory authorities or in scientific studies. The differences in yield compared to the average ranged from 7.6% to 63%.”
This was in spite of the fact, say the researchers, that the areas where GM wheat was grown under the contract farming system overseen by the government seed certifier INASE likely received “greater control of pests, weeds and diseases than the national average for wheat. In some cases, more fertiliser was probably also applied. In any case, yields were significantly lower than the national average for wheat. The conclusion is that the increase in yield for the HB4 variety – the main advantage touted by Bioceres – has not been proven in the field.”
But what about the main selling point of HB4 wheat – its supposed drought tolerance? Argentina’s “National Drought Monitoring Committee” publishes monthly reports, covering the whole country, on the drought situation. Analysis of HB4’s performance under water-stress conditions proved to be complex, as reports of drought are localised and the main producing provinces have diverse climates. However, based on these reports, the researchers were able to gather some revealing figures: “There are reports of a ‘shortage of water to meet demand’ for wheat in the central region of Santa Fe for the month of September [2021]” – but “the yield of HB4 wheat in Santa Fe was 7.6% lower than the provincial average”.
In October, “wheat production was affected in Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and northern Santa Fe”, and there was also a “decline in wheat production” in the NOA region (north-west Argentina). In the Chaco, the yield of HB4 wheat was 15.4% lower than the reference average. In Santiago del Estero, HB4 wheat yielded 17% less, and in Tucumán, 9% less. The November report mentions the effects of the drought on “wheat yields in the Chaco, eastern Santiago del Estero, northern Santa Fe and southern Buenos Aires”. But, the researchers note, HB4 wheat yields in the Chaco, Santiago del Estero and Santa Fe were below the reference average. In Buenos Aires, where 25,000 ha of HB4 wheat were planted in 2021, yields were 27% below the average reference values.
In December 2021, there were renewed reports of drought affecting wheat production in the north-western region of the country. The researchers concluded: “Under these conditions, HB4 wheat did not show any increase in productivity, with its yield being significantly lower than the reference averages taken from official data. The drought tolerance, announced by Bioceres and endorsed by officials from regulatory agencies, was not evident in the field.”
Americans may escape having to eat HB4 wheat – for now
In the US, the FDA greenlighted HB4 for consumption in 2022 and the USDA deregulated it for cultivation in 2024, though it seems that commercial growing has not yet begun there. Meanwhile, concern is growing that, if it does, it will massively increase the use of glufosinate, a herbicide linked to soil, water and fetal harm. As a result, a coalition of civil society organisations that includes Beyond Pesticides and Friends of the Earth US has launched a petition asking major food processors to reject the use of GM wheat in their products.
In 2025 civil society organisations in Argentina and Paraguay called for the suspension of HB4 wheat on the grounds of the failure of the technology. The governments of those countries failed to act. But due to the internal battles in the company and its catastrophic financial situation, the future of the product is at least uncertain and its rollout appears to be stalled for now.
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