GM wheat ground down

Following Bayer's decision to stop its Genetically Modified (GM) maize trials in the UK, Monsanto has decided to stop marketing GM wheat.

In an agricultural turn of phrase, Monsanto said that it would not market its strain of GM wheat because it "does not have a strategic fit with our overall strategy". It says that the commercial development of its Roundup Ready wheat, modified to resist the Roundup weedkiller, would be deferred so that it could concentrate on research into GM maize, cotton and oilseeds.

Anti-GM campaigners are delighted and claim there isn't a market for GM food. Meanwhile, the biotech industry is going ahead with GM crops not directly produced for human consumption.