New York - Gordon Conway, who as president of the Rockefeller Foundation has fought to make biotechnology available to developing nations, will retire at the end of 2004.
"I will have been here six and a half years when I leave, and I've gotten to the age when I want to enjoy my retirement," Conway, 65, told The New York Times for a story in Tuesday editions.
In the 1990s, Conway was an outspoken critic of plans by biotechnology giant Monsanto to use "terminator" genes in its engineered seeds, which would have rendered plants capable of producing only sterile seeds, forcing farmers to buy new seeds each season.
Conway argued before the company's board that farmers in developing nations would be unable to afford the seeds, effectively excluding the world's poor from the latest agricultural advances. Monsanto eventually dropped the plan.
The Rockefeller Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds projects to combat poverty, has assets of about $3-billion.