Monsanto pulls Canada wheat plans

Monsanto announced Monday (May 10) that it is discontinuing development of Roundup Ready wheat, its genetically modified (GM) herbicide-resistant wheat. Instead of going forward with the commercialization of the wheat strains, developed with the help of the federal government's Agriculture Canada, Monsanto said it would monitor the progress other biotech companies make in developing traits that would make GM wheat more commercially viable.

“We'll be looking for progress in disease-resistant traits, stress tolerance traits—the list goes on and on,” Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordon told The Scientist. Jordon said it might take between 4 and 8 years before research yields results that would warrant another look at GM wheat. “Until there is a first trait on the market, we won't initiate work on a second trait. Maybe somebody else will be treated differently than we were treated as a company,” she said.

Monsanto was not treated gently, as various activist ...