Monsanto submits insect-protected soybean tech to Brazilian regulators

St. Louis-based Monsanto (NYSE:MON) said today it has completed regulatory submission for its insect-protected Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans in Brazil. The move marks the first biotech insect-protected product in soybeans.

The company provides technology-based agricultural products to improve farm productivity and food quality. Monsanto said its new product provides protection from feeding damage caused by pests including moths and butterflies in Brazil, as well as tolerance to Roundup agricultural herbicides. U.S. soybean crops currently don’t face on-going problems from these pests, according to a news release from Monsanto.

Pending worldwide regulatory approvals, the company said it plans to commercialize the product in the early part of the next decade. Monsanto has submitted the product to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and plans to submit it to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other import markets in the next several months.

The company’s soybeans, treated with the new product, are in the third phase of development, which includes trait integration, field testing and regulatory data generation. The soybeans have been tested with the same pesticide formula used in the corn and cotton sectors to control pests. The product is also expected to offer increased soybean yields, although the company did not specify how much.

Monsanto predicts the technology will have a $300 million to $500 million value come 2020. It is the first of several technologies the company expects to offer farmers outside the United States.

However, Monsanto is facing opposition in Germany, where it is trying to overturn a ban on MON 810—a strain of corn Monsanto genetically engineered to protect the crop against pests (see Monsanto strikes back at Germany, UCS).

Other companies, including St. Louis-based Divergence, are also coming up with new ways to treat pests. Divergence target unique genomes in nematodes to develop safer pesticides, pest-resistant crops and medicine. In February, Divergence received $11.8 million in Series C funding to continue its development (see Divergence raises $11.8M for crop, pesticide technology).

In May, the UK government announced a £1 million ($1.63 million) grant to launch a joint UK-India project to develop pest-resistant crops by June 2013. The goal is to develop sustainable, anti-parasitic, biotech crops to alleviate the estimated $125 billion lost each year because of parasites (see India, UK start bio-crop research).

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