Monsanto supports the garden financially, as they always have, even though we don't do biotech work other than bioprospecting. I insisted that we also include the University of Missouri in Columbia. The heads of the various institutions would be on the board of directors of the center but would have no direct say in research projects. The center would drive its own programs and have huge flexibility in terms of gathering a group of cutting-edge plant scientists in an independent institution. Eventually, the center will build to 15 principal investigator groups, with 150 scientists.
Agriculture is bad for biodiversity.
But biotech can be used to preserve species. Madagascar, for example, has a rice economy. Lowland rice production is efficient, but human population is outstripping it, spreading upland, into the forest. Biotech is one part of what I hope will be a movement toward sustainable agriculture. Agriculture now is not sustainable, with millions of dollars in damage from pesticides, loss of topsoil, millions of birds lost in the United States alone.