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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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Tag Archives: GMO

Dr. Bryan Young of Southern Illinois University

VIDEO: Hearing from Expert in Weed Resistance Management – Dr. Bryan Young

The winter meeting season has given farmers a lot to think about and Dr. Bryan Young of Southern Illinois University is one of the people prompting thought. Recently Young and a couple of other academics helped plan a series of seminars sponsored by the Illinois Soybean Association to get farmers the latest information available. I attended the nearby seminar one of the events, the one where Young presented. This blog pulls together tweeting from the event and a video we shot with Young after the seminar was over.

Quite a bit of the day’s conversation was shared on Twitter, here … Full Article »

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Originally published
April 4, 2012 by Glynn Young

Farmer Blogger

Farmer Bloggers Making Their Voices Heard

Since today is agriculture day, we thought a great way to celebrate would be to highlight a few of the people who are actively sharing their ag stories online. There are a lot of voices sharing their personal story about agriculture, so we thought it may be good to highlight a few of them now and then, so our hope is this will become a series.

With the number of voices, sadly we can’t highlight them all, but hopefully our readers will find it advantageous to discover blogs telling the story straight from the farm, ranch or science bench. The … Full Article »

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Originally published
March 8, 2012 by Janice Person

Dr. Oz

Biotech in the Land of Oz

If you look at TV Guide any time during the week you can see several nationally syndicated TV programs talking about some of the popular topics in American culture. Food and home are two of the biggest themes so it’s no surprise that agricultural biotechnology and the connections to food would be among the topics discussed. Today’s listings include “Dr. Oz investigates: Genetically Modified Foods.”

The show provided a discussion centered on the safety of GM food and whether GM food should be labeled. The discussion was led by Dr. Mehmet Oz, a medical doctor affiliated with Columbia University and … Full Article »

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Originally published
December 7, 2010 by Janice Person

Monsanto seed technicion Ed Umbaugh gazes at his grass-fed lambs.

Industrial Farming Gives Freedom of Choice for Farmers

From Mica: I discovered my colleague, Ed Umbaugh, through Twitter a few months ago. His Twitter bio intrigued me: “Ed Umbaugh lives on a very small farm where we raise grass fed lamb. I am a Tech at a Monsanto soybean seed plant.” I asked him if he’d be willing to share insight into his experiences with us. Here are his thoughts.

By Ed Umbaugh

I’ve been asked if there is some contradiction in raising grass-fed lamb and working for Monsanto producing transgenic (GMO) soybean seed—both of which I do.

My decision to raise lamb as opposed … Full Article »

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Originally published
September 8, 2010 by Monsantoco

Roundup Ready sugarbeets

Roundup Ready Sugarbeet Court Case Update

Here’s the latest information on the Roundup Ready sugarbeet case. There was a hearing on Friday, Aug. 13.

At the hearing, Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court issued an order which states that harvest and processing of Roundup Ready® sugar beets and sugar beet seed crops planted before August 13, 2010 are not affected and may proceed without interference.The Court decided to vacate the deregulation of Roundup Ready sugarbeets and to return the product to the USDA for appropriate action for future plantings.

The Sugar Industry Biotech Council has a statement up on its site.

Additional resources:… Full Article »

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Originally published
August 16, 2010 by Monsantoco

Five Answers on Monsanto’s Haiti Seed Donation

Since announcing Monsanto’s $4 million seed donation to Haitian farmers on May 13, there have been some questions and some inaccuracies regarding details of the gift. We covered some of the answers in this initial blog post, which primarily addressed how the donation came about and noted the seeds were hybrids not biotech (GMO).

  • Monsanto contacted the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture and offered specific non-GMO seed varieties and quantities suited for Haiti’s growing conditions. The Ministry reviewed the offer and asked some questions, including whether we intended to include GMO seed because Haiti does not have the legal framework

    • … Full Article »

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Originally published
May 20, 2010 by Mica Veihman

Coffee Laptop

Reflection on Earnings

On Wednesday morning, I sat with my coffee cup in hand and listened via Webcast to our CEO Hugh Grant talk with investors and analysts about Monsanto’s second quarter earnings. At the same time, I had my Tweetdeck and Google Reader up to scan and follow the latest comments from our farmer customers. It was refreshing to hear what our execs said in that call, because it matched what I’ve been seeing online from our customers.
What Monsanto executives said yesterday—including CEO Hugh Grant—was the result of feedback they picked up from meeting with farmers across the U.S. for … Full Article »

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Originally published
April 9, 2010 by Mica Veihman

soybean-field

What RR1 Patent Expiration Means for Farmers

The patent for the original Roundup Ready (RR1) soybean trait is set to expire in 2014. That fact has raised all kinds of interest and questions, starting first with what it means for farmers.

Late last year, Monsanto worked to explain our intentions. Lately, several groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, have asked about the regulatory issues involved, because the scientific and export regulatory “estate” for a genetically modified trait like this one has to be maintained. If the estate is not maintained, farmers won’t be able to use the trait. We said last fall that we’d … Full Article »

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Originally published
March 5, 2010 by Glynn Young

Monsanto Corn Causes Organ Damage? Not So.

By Dan Goldstein (aka Dr. Dan)

Recently, a paper was released claiming three Monsanto corn varieties cause organ damage in mammals. This simply isn’t true.

In the current paper (de Vendomois et al., 2009) as with the prior publication (Seralini et al, 2007), Seralini and his colleagues use non-traditional statistical methods to reassess toxicology data from studies conducted with MON 863, MON 810 and NK603 corn varieties, and reach unsubstantiated conclusions.… Full Article »

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Originally published
January 12, 2010 by Monsantoco

Monsanto Response to Associated Press Article Regarding Anti-Competitive Claims

This weekend’s Associated Press article on Monsanto’s licensing agreements with companies missed the mark on the real facts behind our business and our licensing approach, including:

  • Our business has grown tremendously over the years thanks to a number of factors – an early investment in biotechnology, adding new approaches to historic breeding, and a decision to broadly license the results of those investments to anyone who wanted them, including our biggest direct competitors. We understand this scale of success brings scrutiny.
  • The growth of our business cannot be attributed to any forced use by customers or to blocking any competitors.

    • … Full Article »

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Originally published
December 12, 2009 by Mica Veihman