Articles

Monsanto Co, the world's largest seed company, said on Wednesday profits dropped 34 percent in the first quarter compared with a year ago, due in part to lower planted corn acres in South America and a shift in timing of some sales. Monsanto, known for its genetically engineered corn, soybeans and other crops as well as the popular Roundup herbicide, said net sales dropped to $2.9 billion in the quarter ended Nov. 30 compared with $3.1 billion in the year-ago period, with sales of corn seeds and genetic traits down 12 percent.

Symbiota, a start-up agricultural plant health company planning to tweak the capabilities of wheat, corn, soy and other crops in ways that improve yields, has named a former pharmaceutical executive as its president and chief executive officer. David Perry joined Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Symbiota this week after leaving Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc, a company he co-founded and ran from 2002 until last year."

More than half of food tested by the U.S. government for pesticide residues last year showed detectable levels of pesticides, though most were within levels the government considers to be safe, according to a report issued Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The USDA looked at fresh and processed fruits and vegetables as well as infant formula, apple juice, and other products.

The final vote tally on an Oregon ballot measure that would require labeling of foods made with genetically modified ingredients was so close that state officials are doing a recount, a spokesman for the state said on Tuesday. Final results show the Oregon measure losing by 812 votes out of a total of more than 1.5 million votes, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office.

Crop-devouring armyworms are showing increasing resistance in some U.S. farm fields to a popular type of genetically modified crop that should kill them, scientists said on Monday.The evolution of insect resistance "is a great threat" long-term to the sustainability of the GMO crop biotechnology that has become a highly valued tool for many U.S. farmers, according to Fangneng Huang, an entomologist at Louisiana State University (LSU) and lead researcher for a three-year study.

Dow AgroSciences' decision to severely restrict U.S. introduction of its Enlist genetically modified crops and herbicide - billed as the company's most important product launch ever - came after extensive talks with U.S. grain leaders who fear roiling trade with China, a company executive said on Thursday.

Dow AgroSciences said on Wednesday it will restrict sales of its new genetically modified corn and soybeans to prevent them from entering U.S. domestic or international grain marketing channels as it awaits import approval from China. The move by the agricultural unit of Dow Chemical Co is aimed at avoiding the type of market turmoil that hit Sygenta AG and the U.S. grain industry when Syngenta commercialized its own GMO corn without waiting for import approval from China.

Monsanto Co said on Wednesday it reached a settlement with U.S. wheat farmers who sued the seed company over market disruption after unapproved genetically engineered wheat was discovered growing without oversight in Oregon. Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" wheat, which was never approved by U.S. regulators and which the company said it stopped testing a decade ago, was found growing in an Oregon farmer's field in 2013. The company had said all the experimental grain was destroyed or stored away.

Monsanto Co, the world's largest seed company, and its brethren of global biotech crop developers are spreading the word that as far as the safety of their genetically modified grain goes, the science is solidly on their side. The message of "settled" science has become the rallying cry for defenders of the crops and food commonly referred to as GMOs as they push back against consumers, environmentalists, lawmakers and others who want the crops labeled, restricted or banned.

DuPont Pioneer, one of the world's largest seed companies, is refusing to give up on efforts to cultivate genetically modified crops in Chinese fields in the face of regulatory hurdles, even as rivals pull back. The Iowa-based agricultural seed and chemical unit of DuPont this autumn harvested its first test crops of GMO corn in China in six years after lengthy efforts to win government approval for the new field trials.