Monsanto Vice President Carl Casale said today the company's seed partners are playing an increasingly important role as Monsanto continues its strategic transformation to a company based largely on seeds and biotechnology traits. In his remarks today at Monsanto's 2003 Seed Partner Meeting, Casale said that while Roundup herbicide remains a critical component of Monsanto's North American business, its seed and trait offerings have greater potential to add value for customers in the future. In fact, Casale said he expects U.S. gross profit from the company's seeds and traits businesses to surpass gross profit generated by Roundup this year.

"When biotechnology crops were introduced in the mid-1990s, our strategy was to broadly license our technology to seed companies so that farmers had access to our technologies in the hybrids and varieties they wanted," Casale said. "Today, we have more than 300 seed companies in the United States who license our biotech traits."

Monsanto's partnership with seed companies has provided U.S. farmers with:

• Broad access to the latest technologies
• New technologies in quality germplasm that is best suited to their local growing conditions
• Superior weed and insect control, delivered in one package via single and stacked traits in the seed
• 90-plus percent overall product satisfaction as indicated by farmers surveyed who have used the Roundup Ready corn or soybean technology

High product satisfaction among growers using Monsanto's herbicide- tolerant and insect-protected technologies has resulted in an increased use of these technologies -- from 3 million U.S. acres in 1996, to more than 97 million U.S. acres in 2002. Based on early 2003 U.S. orders, Casale projects further adoption of biotechnology this year, including a significant increase in stacked corn products that combine the Roundup Ready trait with the YieldGard insect-protected trait.

Casale also noted that the value created by biotechnology traits is being shared by several parties: Farmers benefit from better weed and insect control, higher yield potential and lower costs; seed partners benefit from new margin opportunities provided via value-added seed offerings; and Monsanto benefits from growth as its technology is used on additional acres. Seed partners and farmers also benefit from Monsanto's reinvestment in research- and-development (R&D) into areas that can provide new value-added products for the future.

"As the leading technology provider to the seed industry, Monsanto continues to invest 80 percent of our R&D dollars to discover and develop better seeds and technology traits," Casale said. "We're committed to working closely with our seed partners to identify potential products that will create new avenues of growth for our partners and their customers.

"Our seed licensees are on the leading edge of agriculture today. They are among the first to offer growers new products, and to take advantage of new sales opportunities in the fastest-growing segment of agriculture," Casale concluded.