Monsanto expects its new GM corn and soybean to pump up volumes

Monsanto Company's R&D pipeline is on the verge of a technology explosion that is expected to deliver value-added products with improved yields for growers and placing the company well on its way to meeting its goals for 2012 and beyond, Hugh Grant, chairman, chief executive and president of the company, said.

Kicking off the company's annual summer field event for investors at Monsanto's manufacturing facility in Grinnell, Iowa, he said: "We see substantially increased demand from agriculture, and the most sustainable way to meet that demand is to create more yield on existing acreage."

Monsanto will present its state-of-the-art technology used to create large-acre trials of Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans and Genuity SmartStax corn at Ames, Iowa and Monsanto's BioFuture site in Huxley, Iowa.

"We have committed to using our technology to double yields in our three core crops - corn, soybeans and cotton - by 2030, while reducing our use of key resources by one-third per unit produced. Innovation has us well on our way to achieving this, with our most robust pipeline ever. We're on the verge of an unprecedented technology explosion that will deliver the types of products growers want most - those that offer greater yield and value," he said.

Grant said the company is on track to expand the seeds and traits side of the business at a 20 per cent compound annual growth rate from 2007 to 2012. He also reaffirmed the company's commitment to double 2007 gross profit by 2012. By 2012, Grant said seeds and traits are expected to reach $7.3 to $7.5 billion of gross profit, approximately 2.5 times its 2007 level, and the Roundup division is expected to provide approximately 10 per cent of total gross profit at approximately $1 billion.

He said Monsanto's plan to deliver seven new high impact technologies, on average one a year, will have the potential to deliver an incremental $3 billion in gross revenues by 2020 in the first countries of launch. The projects include traits from the drought-tolerant corn family; the broad-acre, higher-yielding corn and soybean families; and the nitrogen-utilisation corn family, all of which are part of Monsanto's yield and stress collaboration with BASF; as well as insect-protected soybean technology for Brazilian farmers.