Monsanto-US 99 Roundup-ready soybeans 35 mln acres
Tuesday February 9, 11:46 am Eastern Time
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are expected to plant about 35 million acres of Roundup-ready soybeans in 1999, up from 25 million last year, a Monsanto Co. (NYSE:MTC - news) official said on Tuesday.
Hugh Grant, co-president of Monsanto's worldwide agricultural sector, told Reuters that U.S. farmers are also expected to plant 3.5 million to four million acres of Roundup-ready corn, up from about one million acres last year.
Both products are marketed by Monsanto. They have been genetically modified to resist the company's popular Roundup herbicide.
Worldwide, farmers planted about 73 million acres of genetically-modified crops in 1998, a sharp increase from just seven million acres two years earlier, Grant said.
Farmers planted 59 million acres of Monsanto genetically-modified crops around the world in 1998, up from 3 million in 1996, he said.
Grant said he did not have any projections for how many acres would be planted around the world to genetically-modified crops in 1999.
Thirty-five million acres would be about half of U.S. soybean area.
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