Europe is edging slowly towards GM acceptance, according to Monsanto ceo Hugh Grant. He was speaking at the Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference last week in New York and highlighted Europe’s importance in the future direction of GM and said that his company is laying the groundwork should a policy-change in the major trading bloc come to pass.

He said Monsanto does not count on broad regulatory approvals in its financial projections, but that company is "laying the groundwork to take advantage of policy change if one should come".

Europeans have been anti-GM since the concept was introduced in the 1990s, and acceptance has not been helped by the EU's slow approvals process.

But biotech crops are being planted in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. "When farmers actually experience [the performance of GM crops] on their farm and their field, they don't go back," he said. "…From a farm perspective there is significant progress."

Grant also suggested that Monsanto's future is likely to lie more in sales of biotech crops than chemical inputs.

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