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Agreement Aimed at Developing Higher-Yielding Crops That Are More Tolerant To Adverse Environmental Conditions NEW YORK, March 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BASF (NYSE:BF) and Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) have announced a long-term joint research and development (R&D) and commercialization collaboration in plant biotechnology that will focus on the development of high yielding crops and crops that are more tolerant to adverse environmental conditions such as drought. The companies will dedicate a joint budget of potentially $1.5 billion to fund a dedicated pipeline of yield and stress tolerance traits for corn, soybeans, cotton and canola. Under this collaboration: -- Each company will maintain independent trait discovery programs. -- Each company will nominate specific candidate genes and the most promising candidates will be advanced for accelerated joint development and for commercialization in the Monsanto pipeline. -- The two companies expect to generate a greater number of viable research projects than they could have done on their own, accelerate the development of new products, and bring a greater number of traits to the market at a faster speed. -- The nominated projects will be jointly funded at a 50-50 cost sharing through each phase of development as the candidate gene works its way toward commercial status. -- Products that emerge from the joint development will be commercialized by Monsanto. The companies have agreed to share profits associated with commercialized products, with Monsanto receiving 60 percent of net profits and BASF receiving 40 percent of net profits. For more information, please visit: http://www.basf.com/ or http://www.monsanto.com/ SATELLITE FEEDS: Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 10:00 AM - 10:15 AM ET 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM ET Galaxy 26 (formerly IA 6) Galaxy 26 (formerly IA 6) Transponder 22 Transponder 6 C-Band C-Band Downlink Freq: 4140 Horizontal Downlink Freq: 3820 Horizontal Preview and access this video on Pathfire DMG: 27440 Search within the PR Newswire or MultiVu section by story ID # 27440 or by headline For technical assistance call Pathfire Customer Care at 1-888-345-0489 or e- mail NEWS: BASF & MONSANTO PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY COLLABORATION EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY FORMAT: B-roll and Soundbites ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Video, contact information and more available at http://www.prnewswire.com/broadcast/27440/consumer.shtml SOUNDBITES: Robb Fraley, Chief Technology Officer, Monsanto, Co. Dr. Juergen Hambrecht, Chairman of the Board, BASF B-ROLL INCLUDES: ** farming footage -- tractors, corn fields, cotton fields, etc. ** BASF Footage*** VIDEO PROVIDED BY: BASF and Monsanto Company FOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION OR HARD COPY, PLEASE CALL: MultiVu Media Relations, 800-653-5313 EXT. 3 http://www.prnewswire.com/broadcast/27440/press.shtmlDATASOURCE: BASF; Monsanto Company CONTACT: For technical information or hard copy, please call: MultiVu Media Relations, +1-800-653-5313 ext. 3 Web site: http://www.prnewswire.com/broadcast/27440/press.shtml http://www.basf.com/ http://www.monsanto.com/

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