Washington, DC
July 14, 2009

Monsanto Company invests in developing new technologies for wheat with acquisition of WestBred LLC On July 21, after this statement was issued, Bayer CropScience and CSIRO announced an agreement to establish a far-reaching joint research and development program aimed at improving the productivity and sustainability of cereal production utilizing modern techniques. Long-term cooperation with leading Australian research institute CSIRO: Bayer CropScience expands global R&D activities in seeds and traits by setting up new research focus area in cereals - Superior solutions for wheat farmers could be available as early as 2015 Langfristige Zusammenarbeit mit führendem australischem Forschungsinstitut CSIRO: Bayer CropScience weitet Forschung und Entwicklung auf Getreide-Saatgut als weitere Kernkultur aus Neue Lösungen für den Weizenanbau könnten bereits 2015 verfügbar sein

Source: U.S. Wheat Associates (USW)

"The U.S. wheat industry welcomes the announcement today by Monsanto that it will restart its investment in research on development of biotechnology traits in wheat. 

"The research challenges facing wheat are well known, as is the importance of this crop to world food supplies. This announcement comes at a time when basic research into agronomic improvements to wheat is critically needed.   

"Over the past months and years, we have repeatedly voiced our support for biotechnology and outlined appropriate conditions for commercialization. We have also pressed trait providers to examine this issue carefully.  

"The industry is pleased that Monsanto and other private technology providers, as well as publicly-funded institutions such as the Kansas Innovation Center for Advanced Plant Design and CSIRO in Australia, have recently announced new wheat research investments, and we urge other organizations to follow suit."

For more, visit www.uswheat.org/biotechnology, www.wheatworld.org/biotech

Website: http://www.uswheat.org

Published: July 14, 2009