Monsanto scraps biotech wheat plan

The Monsanto Co. yesterday scrapped plans to commercialize genetically engineered wheat, the biggest defeat yet for advocates of agricultural biotechnology -- and a victory for skeptics who said the company was trying to foist on the world a crop it did not want or need.

Monsanto said it would indefinitely delay plans to commercialize Roundup Ready wheat, a product that three years ago seemed headed for quick approval in the United States and Canada. The company said it would cut most of the $5 million it spends annually to develop the crop.

It did not rule out reviving it some day, but said it would do so only as part of a larger package of genetic alterations in the wheat plant that might win broad acceptance in the marketplace. Monsanto said any decision to revive the product would be four to eight years away.

While a few gene-altered crops have won wide acceptance among farmers, none is used primarily as human food and none carries the philosophical significance of wheat, fields of which make up the "amber waves of grain" that symbolize the bounty of North America. Monsanto's efforts to develop gene-altered wheat had been watched around the world as a bellwether for the future of agriculture.

...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4947685/