Monsanto to Invest $100-Million on Corn Breeding in Western Canada
By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com
Monsanto Co said on Monday that it will invest $100-million over the next 10-years on corn breeding in Western Canada.
The commitment will focus on developing earlier relative maturity (RM) corn hybrids breed for Western Canadian climate. The Canadian Corn Expansion Project has the potential for creating corn acreage between 300,000 to 500,000 acres by 2025, Monsanto said. Western Canada has traditionally been known for growing grains such as wheat and canola.
“Farmers in Western Canada are some of the most sophisticated in the world, but most haven’t had the option to grow corn in the shorter-season climate that characterizes Western Canada. They produce great crops year-after-year in canola, wheat, barley and alfalfa, to name a few. But what if they could do better? That’s the question we started to ask ourselves when we looked at the corn opportunity,” said Mike Nailor, corn and soybean lead for Canada.
The corn expansion project is also occurring in a number of other global markets including The Ukraine and Russia.