Corn is one of the leading bioengineered crops.
Last year Aventis earned 745million euros, or 0.96 euro a share, and the company has indicated that earnings this year will be in the region of 1.04 billion euros, or 1.34euros a share. At the prompting of the Environmental Protection Agency, Aventis in October halted the sale of the StarLink corn in the US after an advocacy group said it had detected 1 per cent of the genetically modified corn in taco shells sold by Philip Morris' Kraft Foods. Regulators have not cleared the corn for human consumption because of concern it might cause allergic reactions for some people. More than 300 food products have been recalled since traces of it were detected. Schering AG, a German drug maker that has a 24 per cent stake in Aventis CropScience, said on Saturday it expected to take a charge of 65million euros related to its share of the recall expense.