Robb Fraley, chief technology officer for Monsanto, said in an interview that the world’s largest seed company spends half of its research budget on classical plant breeding, speeded-up by genomic tools, writes Tom Philpott in Mother Jones. Fraley, a co-winner of the World Food Prize in 2013 for his role in developing agricultural biotechnology, spoke to Philpott during a five-hour tour of Monsanto’s research center. Gene transfer is an expensive process, he said, and it can cost $150 million to create a GMO plant. “We only use it on things we can’t do any other way,” said Fraley.
“While downplaying the role of gene transfer, Fraley and other Monsanto employees embraced other genetic methods for altering crops: gene silencing, or RNAi … and gene-editing techniques, like the much-ballyhooed CRISPR-Cas9. Fraley declared these technologies ‘transformative’ and took pains to classify them as variations on breeding, not GMO technologies,” writes Philpott. Monsanto says RNAi gene-silencing could help plants defend themselves from pests or heighten the effectiveness of pesticides.
The company also is conducting research into soil microbials as another pathway to improving crop performance. “And so Monsanto is working diligently to identify and market the ‘most beneficial’ of the microbes – ones that can help make nutrients more bio-available to crops, or crowd out soil-borne pathogens,” the Mother Jones article said.