Earlier this week Monstanto Company announced it is expanding its strong seeds and traits portfolio to include wheat.
The company has acquired the assets of WestBred, LLC, a Montana-based company that specializes in wheat germplasm, the crop’s seed genetic material. The investment will bolster the future growth of Monsanto’s seeds and traits platform and allow farmers to benefit from the company’s experience in drought-, disease- and pest-tolerance innovations.
“The U.S. wheat industry has come together to call for new technology investment, and we believe we have game-changing technologies – like our drought-tolerance and improved-yield traits – that can meaningfully address major challenges wheat growers face every season,” said Carl Casale, executive vice president of global strategy and operations for Monsanto. “Through WestBred, we’ll be able to deliver advances in breeding and biotechnology to deliver a step-change in yield while creating a springboard for new partnerships and collaboration opportunities that create additional value for farmers.”
Additional details about the announcement can be found at www.monsanto.com/wheat.
The wheat industry followed the announcement with the following statement:
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 Dow AgroSciences, 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.
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