The Corn Feed

The world’s largest plant biotechnology collaboration just got larger. Yesterday, BASF and Monsanto announced they are expanding their joint efforts to develop higher-yielding and stress-tolerant crops to include a fifth crop, wheat. In addition, the companies are increasing their investments in the collaboration, reflecting the strong leads and commercial prospects in the collaboration’s early work.

The partnership was established in 2007 to focus on corn, soy, cotton and canola crops. In the original collaboration, the two companies dedicated a joint budget of potentially $1.5 billion; the new agreement will result in a potential additional investment of more than $1 billion by the companies over the life of the collaboration.

“BASF Plant Science is dedicated to discover genes for maximizing yield in crops that will be brought to farmers through partnerships. The collaboration with Monsanto was not only the first agreement that we entered, it also represents our most significant partnership, covering several large row crops,” said Peter Eckes, president of BASF Plant Science. “The expansion of our partnership reflects the fit between the two companies. The yield increases that we have achieved together in the field so far give us confidence that we can do more in our collaboration crops, which now include wheat.”

With regard to the addition of wheat to the collaboration, the partners will initially focus on developing biotech products for the North American and Australian markets. The first enhanced yielding wheat product is expected to reach the market after 2020. This product will be followed by successive generations of higher-yielding wheat varieties.

Wheat is the world’s second largest commodity crop after corn and demand is expected to grow as millions of people in developing countries such as China and India become more affluent and increasingly add bread to their traditional rice-based diets.

Read more about NutriDense’s relationship with BASF Plant Science in these previous blog posts:

• BASF Plant Science Feed Project continues its work
• Follow BASF and NutriDense on Twitter
• Farm Journal article highlights BASF Plant Science and NutriDense