The next wave of agricultural biotechnology is about to hit the shores of North America.
Seed technology companies have long been combating criticism of their industry with the promise that their technology will create new crops that can help feed a growing world population by better handling environmental stresses.
Last month, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency granted regulatory approval to the first offering along those lines, a drought tolerant corn developed by Monsanto and BASF.
Pioneer Hi-Bred and Syngenta have drought tolerant corn products on the market developed through conventional breeding. MON 87460 is on track to be the first drought tolerant crop grown in North America that was developed through a combination of breeding and biotechnology.
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Monsanto plans to conduct on-farm trials on MON 87460 in the Western Great Plains region of the United States in 2012 once the crop gains regulatory approval in that country.
Field trials are already underway in Canada.
“We don’t yet know if it really is the right fit for this market just because of the geography,” said Trish Jordan, spokesperson for Monsanto Canada.
MON 87460 is the first generation of the company’s drought tolerance technology. It is targeted at growers in the dryland region of the U.S. cornbelt who face annual water shortages.
The second generation of Monsanto’s drought tolerant corn, which has travelled about halfway through the company’s R&D pipeline, may be better suited for Canadian growers. That product is designed to provide yield stability during intermittent drought.
It could be the first of Monsanto’s environmental stress products that has a fit for western Canadian growers, although that is debatable given recent weather trends.
“Obviously in the last couple of years in southern Manitoba we haven’t exactly faced drought,” said Jordan.
Regulatory approval of the MON 87460 corn event ushers in a new era of biotechnology that will provide farmers with crops that are drought, heat and cold tolerant and make better use of nutrients in the soil.
Those traits are five to 10 years away from commercialization in canola and wheat, two of the most popular crops grown in Western Canada.
The next trait canola growers will likely see is Monsanto’s Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Canola, a second generation herbicide tolerance trait that allows farmers to apply Roundup herbicide at higher rates with a wider window of application.
That product is in phase three of the company’s pipeline, with commercial launch anticipated in 2014 or 2015.
Jordan said future stress tolerance traits will likely be stacked with the company’s second generation herbicide tolerance technology in canola.
The same is true for wheat . Monsanto is working on a trait in wheat that will provide two or three herbicide tolerant modes of action.
