Monsanto has made submissions to Canadian regulators seeking approval for the world’s first drought-tolerant genetically modified crop.
The company has applied to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada for food, feed and environmental release of MON87460, a line of corn genetically modified for drought tolerance that was developed with BASF.
The company is also seeking regulatory approval in the United States.
“This submission is both a major milestone in bringing the first-ever biotech, drought-tolerant corn product to market and a reflection of Monsanto’s commitment to developing innovative tools that help protect and grow yield for our farmer-customers,” said Steve Padgette, vice-president of biotechnology for Monsanto.
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The company expects to commercially launch the variety in 2012, pending regulatory approval. It will make regulatory submissions in key import markets such as Japan, Mexico and South Korea within several months in anticipation of that launch.
Field trials conducted last year found that the GM variety met or exceeded the six to 10 percent yield increase target in some of the United States’ key drought-prone areas.
That means an extra seven to 10 bushels per acre for 10 to 13 million acres of U.S. corn planted in areas that experience at least moderate drought on a yearly basis.
Little corn is grown in Western Canada. According to Statistics Canada, nothing was seeded in Saskatchewan last year, a mere 20,000 acres in Alberta and 195,000 acres in Manitoba.
Much of the corn grown in Manitoba is seeded in the Red River Valley, where flooding is more of a concern than drought.
“I always joke with my corn grower friends in southern Manitoba that we should be working on some sort of water absorption technology,” said Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan.
While Monsanto’s drought-tolerant corn may have little application for prairie farmers, Jordan said it is only a matter of time before the trait finds its way into more common prairie crops.
“It is a very exciting project for us and it’s nice to get the regulatory package in,” she said.
Canola will be the first major western Canadian crop to contain the trait.
Monsanto is already working on it, but the company’s first priority is commercializing the next generation of Roundup Ready canola, which will be stacked with a yield-enhancement gene. Those traits are expected to hit the market around 2015, followed by drought tolerance.
Another recent submission to Canadian regulators is for BASF’s herbicide tolerant Clearfield sunflower crop.
It is not considered a GM crop because it was developed using a combination of mutagenesis and conventional breeding, but it is still subject to Canada’s plant-with-novel-traits regulations.
