By Barry A. Palevitz Courtesy of Monsanto Rice, the most widely consumed staple food grain, is harvested on about 10 percent of the world's arable land. Researchers are cranking out genomes faster than many scientists can digest them.
Rice is the world's most important food crop.
The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines estimates that by 2020, four billion people will depend on it. In the future, breeders can identify genes by looking at the database. According to Hood, he approached Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro a few years ago about joint projects. After doing some initial BAC sequences, he decided to finish the job. Monsanto was equally mum, claiming the information is proprietary.