Claiming that the final report of the IAASTD was “unbalanced” and not sufficiently supportive of the use of genetic engineering in agriculture, two major agro-chemical and biotech companies, Monsanto and Syngenta, have withdrawn from the process. It appears that they did not like the results and findings of the approximately 4000 scientsts involved and prefer to ignore the advice of the very lead scientists, which they jointly selected with governments and non-governmental organisations three years ago.