While biotechnology has made huge gains in corn and soybeans, it has yet to penetrate markets for the world’s two leading food grains, wheat and rice.

Until farmers and consumers decide to change their minds, that’s how it’s likely to stay, ABIC speakers said in Calgary on Tuesday.

Monsanto has a backlog of wheat biotechnology that it shelved when U.S. and Canadian farmers rallied in fear of a consumer backlash against biotech bread.

That technology will stay on the shelf, Robb Fraley said, “until there is strong, unified support from the wheat industry.”

“I hope,” said Fraley, chief technology officer for Monsanto, “that I’ve been clear and blunt.”

Fraley said wheat growers are missing out on more and more science the longer they reject ag biotechnology. Roundup Ready genetics brings more to wheat than other crops, he said, because the herbicide helps control fungal diseases. As well, companies could be on their way to producing drought tolerant wheats that would provide higher, more consistent yields around the world.

Meanwhile, Monsanto has upped its research into rice biotechnology. Bayer is also investing in rice research, said James Iademarco, general manager for biomaterials for Bayer CropScience. “There’s no GM rice in the marketplace today, but it’s in our pipeline,” he said. The scale of rice is daunting, however.

 “There are 250 million rice farmers in China alone,” Iademarco said. Even so, rice is further ahead than wheat.