Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) has increased its investment in Mendel Biotechnology,  one of the company's key collaborators on agriculture technologies. As part of today's (15th October) announcement, Mendel noted that the increased investment will be used to support the growth of its new BioEnergy seeds and feedstock business to serve the cellulosic biofuels industry, as well as the further development of its core technology platforms. The company will also use a portion of the proceeds to repurchase shares from existing share and option-holders, thereby restructuring its shareholder base and slightly increasing Monsanto's share in the company. Additional financial details were not disclosed.

To date, the two companies have collaborated to leverage several technologies developed by Mendel in Monsanto's product pipeline, including higher-yielding soybeans that create incremental yield benefits over conventional soybeans.

"Mendel has been an important collaborator for us, and their research continues to play an important role in the development of new products for the farm," said Steve Padgette, Ph.D., Vice President of Biotechnology at Monsanto and a member of the board of directors at Mendel. "We're excited to increase our funding and continue working with Mendel, especially as they venture into the cellulosic biofuels arena."

"Today, our research in both breeding and biotechnology is focused on helping farmers get more yield out of a single seed, enabling them to do more with less," Padgette said. "We're encouraged by Mendel's development of technologies that serve the cellulosic biofuels industry. We'll closely monitor development of this technology and how it could be applied to support global bioenergy needs."