Monsanto has studied the views of more than 22,000 UK arable farmers via the National Farm Research Unit's monthly farmer survey since April 2001, and the current figures confirm a trend first made public by Monsanto UK a year ago.

Up to March 2004, cumulatively:

• 45% of UK farmers are unequivocally in favour of growing GM crops in the UK

• 21% are also in favour of growing GM crops, but continue to qualify their opinion, depending on market acceptance, crop experience and other factors

• 27% don't know

• 8% are opposed

These UK figures compare with the 2003 global figures for GM crop adoption showing a 15% increase to 167 million acres, grown by 7 million farmers in 18 countries, where GM crops have been commercialised over the past 7 years.

BACKGROUND

For further details about actual GM acreages grown worldwide, please see the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications '2003 Global GM Crop Review' (ISAAA) which is available at http://www.isaaa.org/kc/CBTNews/press_release/briefs30/es_b30.pdf

Of the 7 million farmers globally growing GM crops in 2003, over 85% of them are resource-poor growers in developing countries with very little land, indicating just how scale neutral the technology is. See http://www.isaaa.org/kc/CBTNews/press_release/briefs30/b30_english.pdf

Those surveyed monthly in the UK are farmers with at least 130 hectares of tilled arable land, representing 50% of the total 4.8 million hectares of tilled arable land in the Great Britain.