St. Louis, Missouri
January 10, 2002
Monsanto Company welcomes
today's report by the International Service
for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA),
which demonstrates the growth in use of plant biotechnology
around the world and its importance to improving agriculture in
the developing world.
"This report puts an important focus on the economic,
environmental and health benefits biotechnology can bring the
developing world, including increased yields, reduced pesticide
use and disease resistance," said Robert Horsch, Ph.D., Vice
President for Monsanto's Technology Cooperation program.
According to ISAAA's "Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic
(GM) Crops," biotech crop acreage in developing countries in
2001 represented more than one-quarter of total global biotech
crop acreage.
"Farmers in developing regions are beginning to have access to
modern agricultural tools like biotechnology that will help grow
more and better food, care for the land, and protect the
environment," said Horsch. "Plant biotechnology tools also help
increase farmers' productivity and, in turn, their income,
resulting in a reduction in poverty in their communities."
"These tools are particularly valuable in developing countries
where farmers, whose welfare depends on a successful harvest,
often lack conventional means of crop protection."
ISAAA also reports that more than three-quarters of the farmers
who benefited from biotech crops in 2001 were resource-poor
farmers planting insect-resistant or Bt cotton enhanced through
biotechnology to repel bollworms, mainly in China and in South
Africa.
According to a recent study by the University of Reading and the
University of Pretoria, in the Makhathini Flats region of South
Africa where bollworms traditionally have destroyed up to 60
percent of growers' harvests, Monsanto's Bollgard cotton helped
to increase yields by 33 percent, reduce pesticide sprays by six
sprays per crop and increase income by an average of 27 percent.
"The success of Bollgard in Makhathini Flats is a good example
of how biotechnology can help farmers in Africa and throughout
the developing world improve the quantity and quality of crops
they depend on for income and to feed their families and
communities," said Kinyua Mbijjewe, Monsanto's spokesman for
Africa.
"Hopefully this report will stimulate the support needed to
enhance plant biotechnology research and broaden the developing
world's access to the benefits of biotechnology," said Mbijjewe.
For more than ten years, Monsanto has worked in collaboration
with public agricultural researchers around the world to improve
crops that are particularly important in developing countries.
This commitment is reflected in the New Monsanto Pledge, a
series of commitments that describe the company's policies for
products developed through biotechnology.
These projects include providing broad access to a working draft
of the rice genome and participating in work to develop the
virus-resistant papayas in South East Asia and sweetpotatoes in
Africa.
ISAAA's 2000 global report mentioned that Kenya's first
sweetpotato field trials were underway. Those field trials were
completed in 2001 and sweetpotato research continues with
Monsanto's report.
In addition, the Monsanto Fund is supporting the St. Louis-based
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center's efforts to develop a
virus-resistant cassava, a staple crop in Africa.
Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) is a leading provider of
agricultural solutions to growers worldwide. Monsanto's
employees provide top-quality, cost-effective and integrated
approaches to help farmers improve their productivity and
produce better quality foods.
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