Monsanto has raised its second-quarter earnings forecasts on the back of successful results from its seeds and traits business.

A solid year-to-date performance globally, higher revenues from corn and soybean traits in the US, increased corn seed sales in the Europe-Africa region, and higher revenues for Roundup and non-branded glyphosate-based herbicides globally - excluding the US - are said to be driving the company' forward.

Monsanto expects earnings-per-share (EPS) to be in the range of $2.00 to $2.05 on an ongoing basis for fiscal 2005. Previous updates from the firm had estimated towards the upper end of the $1.85 to $2.00 range. Its complete second-quarter earnings on April 6.

Monsanto last week completed its acquisition of leading seed company Seminis, paying $1 billion in cash and assuming about $400 million in debt.

ompany spokeswoman Lori Fisher said:"There could be a future potential for biottech, but this is not the reason why we bought Seminis," said Fisher. In the near term, she explained, they will be looking at using Monsanto’s advanced "non-biotech" breeding techniques - that have been applied mainly to bulk crops such as soy and corn - to help Seminis improve yields in certain crops. This should also reduce the time it takes to bring a new product to market.

Until now Monsanto has focussed on large-scale crops such as oilseed rape and corn and has had no profile in the vegetable seed market. This will be rectified by the purchase of Seminis.

Moreover, this acquision will give Monsanto a further foot in the door in Europe and the Middle East, which account for a heavy percentage of Seminis’ sales, and to a lesser degree in Asia.

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