Edited Transcript of CERE earnings conference call or presentation

On our call today, I will discuss the progress we have made this year in our strategic shift to feed and forages, and highlight some of the milestones we have achieved to date. During our past calls, we laid out a number of near-term milestones, including increase plantings of our forage sorghum in the United States, moving ahead with business develop discussions for our trait technology, attaining new patent awards and adding licensees of our Persephone technology. I'm pleased to report that we have achieved all of these milestones. I'll spend our time today discussing these accompaniments in more detail, and conclude with a number of near-term goals ahead of us.

FY15 was a transitional year for Ceres, as we embarked on a new strategic direction. We've made some very significant changes in order to refocus the organization on our strengths in agricultural technology and our new market opportunities. This included redirecting our pipeline of seed products and traits toward food and feed markets that are being driven by global prosperity, and away from bioenergy in Brazil, both of which continue to struggle from a number of political, technical and economic challenges.

We believe the forage market provides an exciting market opportunity, fueled by fundamental changes in the diets of more than a billion people who are entering the middle class. This demographic transition is creating what the United Nations says described as, quote -- the next Food Revolution -- unquote.

Unlike the Green Revolution of the 20th century, which was largely focused on grain crops and was supply-driven, the Livestock Revolution, as it is being called, is being driven by demand. Simply put, as people move up the socioeconomic ladder, they increase their dairy and beef consumption.

For every extra pound of beef or dairy consumed, there's a multiplier effect on the number of pounds of forage and feed needed to supply that increase. This trend is global and has broad, long-lasting implications on agricultural production, especially on the production of feed and forage crops. Our vision today is to become a leading supplier of technology products to support this growth.

 

Read More..