Monsanto Commits to Double Yield in Three Major Crops

Food & Beverage Close-Up, June 8, 2009

FOOD AND BEVERAGE CLOSE-UP-8 June 2009-Monsanto Commits to Double Yield in Three Major Crops(C)2008 - CloseUpMedia - newsdesk@closeupmedia.com

Monsanto Company announced a three-point commitment to help increase food production in the face of growing demand, limited natural resources and a changing climate.

It pledged to work in new partnerships with other businesses, citizen groups and governments to meet one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.

"Agriculture intersects the toughest challenges we all face on the planet," said Hugh Grant, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Monsanto, in announcing the commitment to help address the needs of a global population expected to reach nine billion people by 2050. "Together, we must meet the needs for increased food, fiber and energy while protecting the environment. In short, the world needs to produce more while conserving more.

"As an agricultural company focused on increasing crop yields, we will do our part. But it will also require the efforts of a diverse group of organizations with many points of view to work together and take action to address the daunting challenges facing us all."

Monsanto's three-point commitment to growing yields sustainably includes:

-- Develop better seeds - Monsanto will double yield in its three core crops of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030, compared to a base year of 2000. The company will also establish a $10 million grant designed to accelerate public sector research in wheat and rice yield.

-- Conserve resources - Monsanto will develop seeds that will reduce by one-third the amount of key resources required to grow crops by the year 2030. The company will also join with others to address habitat loss and water quality in agriculturally important areas.

-- Help improve farmers' lives - The company will help improve the lives of farmers, including an additional five million people in resource-poor farm families by 2020.

"We're undertaking this initiative after engaging many of our farmer customers, policymakers, scientists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and experts in academia and industry. We asked them what agriculture must do to become more sustainable, and our commitment reflects how we will put their advice into action," Grant said.

In discussing the challenges faced by agriculture, Grant noted that the world faces significant food price inflation for the first time in decades, driven largely by the demand for higher-protein diets in such countries as China and India and energy prices that have quadrupled over the past five years. Experts say it will be necessary to produce as much food between now and 2050 as has been produced in the last 10,000 years. As agriculture uses 70 percent of the world's fresh water and more than half of the habitable land, much of the production increase must come from increased crop yields.

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