About “Beyond the Rows”

Beyond the Rows is a Monsanto Company blog focused on one of the world’s most important industries, agriculture. Monsanto employees write about Monsanto’s business, the agriculture industry, and the farmer.avatar Monsantoco Posts

Authors:

  • avatar
  • avatar
  • avatar
  • avatar
  • avatar
[x] close

About Glynn Young

avatar
Glynn Young leads Monsanto’s Online Strategy & Communications team, which includes www.monsanto.com, online video production and content development. He joined Monsanto in 2004 and has a passion for online communications and telling stories about Monsanto’s people. He’s a cyclist and an ardent reader, and he edits an online poetry journal (he claims to have written a poem about corn and one about tomatoes). A native of New Orleans, he received a B.A. in journalism from LSU in Baton Rouge and a Master of Liberal Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. He and his wife have two grown sons, one daughter-in-law, a great if elderly dog and a brand new grandson.
Follow Glynn on Twitter Subscribe to RSS feed
Campus-2

Remembering a Colleague: Robert Berra Featured Article

The news comes like this kind of news usually does today – someone sends an email, or forwards a message, or perhaps even makes a phone call. In this case, I received an email last Friday saying that Robert Berra had died in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Not many people working at Monsanto today will remember Bob Berra – many of them were children in grade school when he retired from the company then called Monsanto. But what he accomplished while he was here is still very much with us today, long after spin-offs, acquisitions, being acquired, and being spun-off. The … Full Article »

Tags: , , , ,

Originally published
May 15, 2013 by Glynn Young

Online news

The Curious Case of the Paper That Isn’t Featured Article

On Jan. 15, the physics journal Entropy received a paper for possible publication. The paper was entitled “Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases,” and claimed that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and many other herbicides, was responsible for a host of diseases, including autism, Alzheimer’s, obesity, anorexia nervosa, liver disease, reproductive and developmental disorders, and cancer.

The paper was authored by Anthony Samsel, an independent researcher in New Hampshire, and Stephanie Seneff, who works in at MIT in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. … Full Article »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Originally published
April 30, 2013 by Glynn Young

World Water Day Water Cycle Poster

The Importance of Water – Via Latin America Featured Article

World Water Day was noted on March 22, but the importance of water for global agriculture is 365 days a year. It takes a lot of water to grow food – and agriculture consumers about 75 percent of total freshwater use.

Considerable research is underway on developing crops that use less water – or use it more efficiently. Some varieties are juts now coming on the market – the first deliveries of Monsanto’s Genuity DroughtGard hybrid corn were made in late February in Texas. (You can read about these hybrids on Monsanto.com, and a recent article also provides more … Full Article »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Originally published
April 4, 2013 by Glynn Young

Corn infographic

How Many Crayons in an Acre of Soybeans? Featured Article

What is the highest natural source of dietary fiber?

How many $100 bills can be made from a bale of cotton?

How much of the world’s corn does the United States produce?

In 1960, the average U.S. farmer fed 26 people. How many does the farmer feed today?

No, it’s not an agriculture trivia game.

Over at America’s Farmers, the “Did You Know” section has been updated with new facts, infographics and information on American agricultural production. It’s a collection of a lot of fun facts, and even a video or two.

Behind the fun facts, though, is … Full Article »

Tags: , , ,

Originally published
March 27, 2013 by Glynn Young

3 farmers

Pride, Humility, Courage, and the Long Haul Featured Article

Today is National Agricultural Day – the day designated to celebrate American agriculture and the abundance of food it provides.

It’s a day, too, to consider who makes that abundance of food possible.

You can’t be in agriculture for long without realizing the people are who agriculture, and the values that underpin what they do every day.

The people are the farm families, the people who, despite all the hoopla about “corporate” and “industrial” agriculture, are still responsible for most of the food production in the United States. Ninety-eight percent of farms in America are owned by families.

The values … Full Article »

Tags: , , , ,

Originally published
March 19, 2013 by Glynn Young

‘The Real Seeds of Deception’ Featured Article

It’s a staple on social media and a commonplace on activist blogs: Thousands of Indian farmers have killed themselves because of GM seeds. 

There’s only one problem: it’s a fabrication. 

We’ve said it was a deception many times before, but it’s just too good of a story not to be repeated. It fits with the other myths constructed about GM crops. And if it helps to sell books and movies, well, that can’t be all bad, can it? 

A study by the Indian government said the claim wasn’t true. 

A review by the International Food Policy Research Institute… Full Article »

Tags: , , , , ,

Originally published
March 11, 2013 by Glynn Young

small corn

ISAAA Releases 2012 Report on Global Biotech Crops Featured Article

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) recently released its report on the Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops 2012. Two significant developments were noted.

First, developing countries now dominate in plantings of biotech crops. “For the first time since the introduction of biotech/GM crops almost two decades ago,” the report said, “developing countries have grown more hectares of biotech crops than industrialized countries, contributing to food security and further alleviating poverty in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.”

Developing countries accounted for 52 percent of the total global plantings of biotech crops in 2012, … Full Article »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Originally published
February 27, 2013 by Glynn Young

Monsanto Today Launched Featured Article

Monsanto has launched a new online channel, Monsanto Today, that aggregates news about the company, our customers and the agricultural industry in one online location. 

Updated several times a day, the publication provides updated news by linking directly to the source. News sources providing information include Monsanto.com, the Monsanto Facebook page, Monsanto Fund, the company’s global and product web sites, farmer blogs, trade and industry association sites, farm media and general news media. 

Monsanto today will serve primarily as a news portal, but can also be used to post original content. 

The site is among the … Full Article »

Tags: , , , ,

Originally published
February 4, 2013 by Glynn Young

corn-banner

Poetry at Work Day: The Farmer as Poet Featured Article

There was a time when newspapers routinely published poetry, but that was a century or so ago. Times changed, and poetry largely disappeared from the newspapers delivered to our doorsteps.

Except, perhaps, in Champaign, Illinois.

The Champaign News-Gazette discovered a Central Illinois farmer who happened to write poetry. One thing led to another, and late last year, the newspaper published Song of the Prairie by Linden Warfel.

Warfel is a fourth-generation generation farmer, and he is a lot more than that, too: a husband (he and he wife Kay have been married almost 50 years), a father (five children), a … Full Article »

Tags: , , , ,

Originally published
January 15, 2013 by Glynn Young

biotechnologybanner

Monsanto’s 2013 Research Pipeline Update Featured Article

Last week, Monsanto announced its 2013 update for our research pipeline. A record 18 projects are advancing across the company’s breeding, biotechnology and improved agronomics platforms.

The projects include corn rootworm; above-ground insect protection for corn; insect-protected soybeans; next generation Bollgard cotton; herbicide tolerant wheat; Dicamba-, Glufosinate- and Glyphosate-tolerant corn; Goss’s Wilt resistance in corn; root know nematode resistance in cotton; BioDirect Technology virus control and insect control; and nematicide chemistry, among others.

In addition to the 18 project advancements, Monsanto has three projects in its Ground Breakers® on-farm testing program. Ground Breakers®, a testing program that informs the company’s … Full Article »

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Originally published
January 14, 2013 by Glynn Young