The debate on bio-tech foods and seeds wears on. Food pro­duc­tion must dou­ble by 2050, and the only way to do that is with genet­i­cally mod­i­fied foods. How­ever, many crit­ics say the foods only poi­son us and the earth.

Reuters has this exhaus­tive pro­file on Mon­santo that we found at the Inde­pen­dent On-line. Mon­santo is a lead­ing agri­cul­ture com­pany that is spend­ing lots of money on improv­ing seeds and yields in hopes that the farm­ers will turn to their products.

Writer Carey Gillam began the story by talk­ing of a visit from Monsanto’s Vice Pres­i­dent of research Rob Fra­ley, with his friend Dr Nor­man Bor­laug.

The topic of Fraley’s final con­ver­sa­tion with his friend that day under­scored the unfold­ing of a mod­ern era of global agri­cul­ture. In this new par­a­digm, tra­di­tional plant breed­ing is giv­ing way to the high-tech tools of rich cor­po­ra­tions like Mon­santo, which are play­ing an increas­ingly pow­er­ful role in deter­min­ing how and what the world eats. It is also gen­er­at­ing con­tro­versy, as crit­ics con­tinue to ques­tion the safety of biotech crops, and fear increas­ing con­trol of the global food sup­ply by giant corporations.

Still, few dis­pute that some­thing needs to be done. The United Nations has said that food pro­duc­tion must dou­ble by 2050 to meet the demand of the world’s grow­ing pop­u­la­tion and that inno­v­a­tive strate­gies are needed to com­bat hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion that already afflict more than 1 bil­lion people.

Amid this dire out­look, St Louis, Missouri-based Mon­santo — along with its biggest cor­po­rate rivals, char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions, pub­lic researchers and oth­ers — is form­ing a loose coali­tion of inter­ests insti­gat­ing a sec­ond Green Revolution.

“What we do builds on what he started,” Fra­ley said of Bor­laug, who died in Sep­tem­ber at the age of 95.

Founded in 1901 as a maker of sac­cha­rine, Mon­santo has under­gone sev­eral evo­lu­tions of its own.

The com­pany spends an esti­mated $2-million a day on agri­cul­ture research and devel­op­ment — more than any other company.

It employs about 400 sci­en­tists in four St Louis-area research facil­i­ties, apply­ing an array of new tech­nolo­gies to plant genet­ics, with a goal of dou­bling yields in major crops, such as corn and soy­beans, between now and 2030.

“If we do that suc­cess­fully, it won’t just be good for Mon­santo, it will be good for the world,” Fra­ley said.

As it posi­tions itself to be a leader in advanc­ing a global fight against hunger, Mon­santo has started work­ing with non­profit organ­i­sa­tions in poor nations, donat­ing research and genet­ics to help needy farmers.

The moves run par­al­lel to Monsanto’s com­mer­cial sales of high-priced seeds and agri­cul­tural chem­i­cals to farm­ers in wealthy nations, which has made the com­pany a dar­ling of Wall Street and helped it post record net sales of $11,7-billion and net income of $2,1-billion for fis­cal 2009.

The US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture and gov­ern­ments around the world are encour­ag­ing Mon­santo — as well as rivals DuPont, Dow Chem­i­cal, BASF and other cor­po­rate inter­ests — to work with aca­d­e­mics, foun­da­tions and pub­lic insti­tu­tions on how to increase food pro­duc­tion globally.

Drought-tolerant crops, par­tic­u­larly corn, are high on the agenda amid con­cerns about a chang­ing cli­mate. Improved wheat is also a major goal.

Corn and wheat account for about 40 per­cent of the world’s food and 25 per­cent of calo­ries con­sumed in devel­op­ing coun­tries, and mil­lions of peo­ple get more than half of their daily calo­ries from corn and wheat alone, accord­ing to the United Nations’ Food and Agri­cul­ture Organisation.

“We want to encour­age the pri­vate sec­tor to help shape research. These are impor­tant issues for all Amer­i­cans and the world,” said Roger Beachy, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s newly appointed direc­tor of the US National Insti­tute of Food and Agriculture.

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