Monsanto claims more global biotech victories

< Prev | 1 | 2

More from The Big Money

Google May Go Local With Yelp's Help

Word of the Week

What We Have Here Is a Failure To Communicate

Why Google-Yelp Makes Sense

Google Trying To Buy Yelp

(external links)

LIVE QUOTE

Quotes delayed 15+ min.

Promises unmet
Critics complain that Monsanto and its rivals have failed to deliver on the promise to revolutionize agriculture with plants genetically engineered to be healthier, drought-resistant and tastier.

Monsanto's best-selling seeds remain soy, corn and cotton genetically engineered to resist weed killers and bugs, and the prospects for introducing new biotech crops to the market are at least two years away.

"Monsanto has done a good job of cornering the biotech market, but it has a very narrow focus on a very few products," said Greg Jaffe, who wrote a report last month lamenting the industry's lackluster immediate future for the Washington D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. "They seem to be coasting on the products that they developed in the mid-1990s."

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

Addressing that concern, Monsanto last month agreed to pay $1 billion cash for Seminis Inc., the Oxnard, California-based supplier of more than 3,500 seed varieties to commercial fruit and vegetable growers, dealers, distributors and wholesalers in more than 150 countries.

It also has turned its attention to conquering the cotton sector — now dominated by Bayer CropScience and Delta and Pine Land — with its $300 million acquisition last month of the third largest U.S. cotton seed provider, Emergent Genetics.

More biotech approvals
On Tuesday, Monsanto said it got U.S. regulatory approval for its next-generation of Roundup-resistant cotton, which among other things allows growers to use the herbicide later in the season, reduces tillage and is less dependent on some spray equipment.

Monsanto expects the cotton to be offered in time for the 2006 growing season, with regulatory approval in other countries to follow later this year.

This month, India — a reluctant entrant in the world of biotech — approved cultivation of six varieties of genetically modified cotton based on Monsanto technology in its fertile northern region, thwarting anti-biotech activists. Monsanto's pest-resistant cotton is the only genetically engineered crop allowed in India.

In Brazil, meanwhile, lawmakers this month cleared the way for regulators to approve biotech crops, opening a big door for Monsanto to sell its popular modified soy seed in a country where farmers have used pirated versions of the company's Roundup Ready variety for years. Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is expected to soon sign that into law.

The country's soy market has boomed over the past decade and the new law would double use of Monsanto's soy seeds in Brazil over the next several years to about 50 percent of the market.

Monsanto insists its inroads into Brazil are just a start.

"Where we are is still at the very beginning of the cycle," said Fraley, the company CTO, "like betting at the beginning of the computer revolution.".

< Prev | 1 | 2