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

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The Safety of Biotech Sweet Corn Featured Article

Last week, Huffington Post published an opinion piece that raised concerns about the safety of biotech sweet corn. The author was the executive director of Food & Water Watch, which has been maintaining a public relations campaign against GM food in general and biotech sweet corn in particular.

Best Food Facts, a web site sponsored by the Center for Food Integrity, has an interview with three food experts about the safety of biotech sweet corn, other issues raised in the article, and what – if any – effect GM food has on human health. The three are professors at … Full Article »

Monsanto Cafeteria

What’s Served in Monsanto’s Cafeterias?

It’s 1999. Bill Clinton is in the White House. Sydney is preparing for the Summer Olympics. The world population is about a billion less than it would be in 2012.

A caterer in the United Kingdom tells the Independent newspaper that it doesn’t use GM food, which would have been difficult in the U.K. in 1999 since there wasn’t any to exclude, but that’s another story. The Independent reports it as “GM Food Banned in Monsanto Canteen.” GM critics have a field day.

Flash forward 13 years. Greenpeace, always interested in recycling, recycles this 1999 news story. People … Full Article »

I Am Monsanto

By Jeff

There are a lot of things that describe me. PhD scientist, husband, father, biophysicist, biochemist, blogger, history buff, platform lead, poet, Monsanto employee and political progressive. The last two things on that list are a source of great conflict, at least for me recently.

Those that know me well know that my political leanings lie far to the left and they also know that I make no apologies for it. As a result, I read Daily Kos daily. I have met some wonderful progressive activists through that blog and participated in activities that are aimed at making our … Full Article »

You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too – Even if it is Organic

According to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), sales of organic food and beverages have grown from $1 billion in 1990 to an estimated $20 billion in 2007.

During roughly the same time period, biotech crops have been adopted at a phenomenal rate.

Biotech crops first became available in the U.S. in 1996. Twelve years later, more than 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. are biotech. Biotech canola, squash, sugar beets and papaya have also come on the market.

Why then do so many opposed to biotech cite biotech “contamination” of organic … Full Article »

Organic vs. Biotech – Not an Either/Or Issue

I recently went back to Iowa to visit my parents. While sitting around the dinner table, my mother brought up our old summer trips to the farmers’ market. In past summers, my parents and I would frequent the large downtown farmer’s market on the weekend. It’s something we all enjoy–my mom likes buying fresh produce, I like sampling wines and buying home-baked goods, and my dad likes to camp out at the breakfast burrito stand.

This farmers’ market has all sorts of food from a variety of sources. There are organic, naturally-grown, and conventionally-grown vegetables and fruits.

Why does a … Full Article »

10 Reasons Why We Do Need GM Foods… “The future rests in the soil beneath our feet”

A couple months ago, waiting for my plane to take off, I found a lost National Geographic Magazine in the front seat pocket. With a lot of time ahead and not much to do, I decided to enjoy the eye-catching pictures you usually find inside. But, there was an article that caught my attention for most of the flight.

Traveling around the world, NatGeo journalist Charles C. Mann studied the way people take care of their soil to survive, and how human behavior can impact present and future generations. There are several ways of wasting our resources and human beings … Full Article »

Reasons Why We DO Need GM Food

Two months ago, my family and I moved to St. Louis. We are from Argentina (if you keep going down the map from the U.S., it is right at the bottom of South America) where I used to work for an oil and gas company as a public relations manager.

New in town, I was hired by a company I have heard of a lot, but which I barely knew. Having grown up in a city of 8 million I don’t know much about agriculture either. I was a bit concerned about this–going to work for a company I knew … Full Article »