Question for farmers...

Heard a Monsanto radio ad yesterday...tag line was "Improving Farmers' crops and lives".
Recent documentary made Mansanto out as dog gone near criminal in their behaviour towards farmers; another credits their former cheif geneticist with saving the planet.
Farmers- what's the real story from your perspective?

They have helped us with new and great chemicals and what not but they sure do like to stick it to ya for that technology!

They have helped us with new and great chemicals and what not but they sure do like to stick it to ya for that technology!

They have given us alot of items that are great. But they love to charge alot for them. It is making it easier to cover more ground. Kinda a double-edged sword. Can"t make it with row-crops on less than 3000 acres it seems. Just too small profit margin. Just my .02

I've used their Roundup and have planted their Asgrow brand of soybean (and signed the agreement). Good products but in the past few years they've been overly aggressive in increasing their prices resulting in most of us using generic glyphosate and other company's seeds. They're probably a good stock buy at $66-67 though. That's a 52 week low and they're still spending big bucks on R & D so they should continue to have a good product lineup. If they reduce prices and are successful in regaining a good customer base and then increase prices again (a common tactic) who knows? They might make a lot of money. There should be plenty of that type of business to go around. We're now feeding about 7 billion people on the planet and those numbers will probably increase.

Monsanto is like the neighborhood drug dealer. They got everyone hooked on their technology at reasonable prices. Now that they have an inordinate market share they have taken command of the marketplace and offer their technology at outrageous prices. To top that off it is almost impossible to purchase the latest genetics without the technology attached.

The sad part is that today's farmers have forgotten or don't know how to farm without the technology and lack the collective will to seek out other alternatives to the Monsanto cropping system. So, like the drug user that is hooked the farmers just keep going back to the street corner to get their next fix.

Opinion, mine alone. I am of the belief that a few rotten apples basically spoiled the barrel for all. Some farmers signed an agreement that they would not save seed yet because they have no ethics or integrity they did anyway and got caught and hauled to court. That is just a part of the picture. The same idea applies to other seeds but the owners of rights for them aren't aggressive in pursuing them in courts.

I personally believe Monsanto has gotten a bad rap and the horrible stories that continually float around the Internet are often based on half fact or less, and are often distributed by those that have no farming knowledge or even know what is going on.

Excellent products.

As to pricing----I have always been willing to pay Burpee and Parks garden seed companies extra because they spend big dollars to develop new varieties which benefits me. Farmers should understand that continual research is needed. The UG99 wheat fungus requires that research be done now before it arrives in America. Tomato diseases are another good example for ongoing research and funding.

It has been mentioned about the price skyrocketing the last few years? Duh, a petroleum based product with crude oil extremely high, I can see where the pricing is coming from. Hasn't gasoline also skyrocketed?

More on pricing. Think about razors and the purchase of blades. The current price of blades seems astronomical compared to those of old. Research funding costs folks. We now have great products but they are costly. Also in pricing is the advertising costs to get the product advances out before the public so that they will buy them.

Monsanto sponsors many things which are costly. Reminds me of Bell/AT&T giving away to charities in order to look like good guys while they could charge less. Instead let us do the giving and get the benefits on our taxes. To further get an idea of advertising costs go price store brand soft drinks and those of the major companies that buy scoreboards, etc.

One must also remember that Monsanto has to continually defend themselves in courts and also spend lots to prosecute the thieves or cheaters if you prefer.
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As to the pollination drifting and court battles I have only limited knowledge and information about that so really cannot adequately comment for or against Monsanto on that issue.

Those are my opinions, to each their own.

I think the bean man has drank the kool-aid a bit to much.

Genetics are good, but also bad. Round up is good, but what problems is genetically modifiying seeds going to bring. The old world does not want the stuff. Many health issues are being linked to processed food and chemicals. Do we REALLY know what effects GM seeds have on us?
Reminds me of a certain Frankenstien movie....

I'm not some anti busines left wing nut job,so all I can say is that I appreciate the technologies that they have developed and patented. They really do work and make life easier and crops yields better.
Of course we could let the leftwing government have their way and they could take over agriculture by controlling our inputs. It'd be great to have them take us over like they have banking,healthcare,the auto industry........

I am not a big time farmer by any means but I will say this. I sign a paper every year say'n I will do what they say and I will pay more for their seed, if I put a pencil to it and save money. I am not going to do extra work, burn more fuel, waste more time, and pay more for chemicals than the guy across the fence just to teach Momma Monsanto a lesson.

Many of the same farmers who bad mouth Monsanto will gladly go to the gooberment office and sign away who knows for a few bucks of free money. I don't loose as much sleep over sign'n Monsanto's agreement as I do USDA stuff. I was approved this year for a pasture renovation program cost share. Local NRCS office told me to spray my pastures a month ago with glyphosate and plant the grass seeds they said buy and I HAD to use their drill to plant the seeds. They have 3 drills, one is broke down and they are wait'n on parts and the other two are loaned out right now but I am on the list when one comes in. It's 80 degrees here now, I have over $2000 worth of orchard grass and clover seed stacked in the barn, brown pastures, and the lady at the office is getting really tired of me calling every day.

Monsanto is not the worst enemy of the farmer by a long shot in my book right now.

Sorry didn't mean to start ranting.

Dave

As with everything in nature the weeds will grow immune to roundup just like bacteria has with antibiotics. As far as improvements in our crops it is nothing new we have been doing that since we have become farmers and moved a way from gatherers. Monsanto is just doing it faster than we could by selective breeding to produce a give result.

My backwards view is we are to efficent and should go back to the good ole days of hoes and cultivators and 50 bushels a acre corn then it would be worth growing.

great insight...thanks!

I don't farm, but I do read, and I don't see how any farmer or grower etc could feel well informed on the GE/GM question without first becoming familiar with the extremely interesting Monsanto pollination drift Canadian case(s)? as well as the pollination drift cases here in OR, and, I assume, other places.
The Europeans are much more cautious then here, where we (and our children) are all being the guinea pigs in the GE/GM experiments; there may well be no real dangers, but if there are, we won't know until we're engulfed in them.
Monsanto et al blare that GE/GM is the most wonderful thing since stretch jeans, and at the same time spend millions in "campaign contributions" to block labelling...

I don't grow any round up ready beans. I use liberty link. But I do buy Dekalb corn seed. You are going to pay one way or another, tech fee, lost yield, more chemical/fuel/time. I don't like the tech fee but, not much you can do about it. When I had the RR beans I liked them. But with RR corn I don't want to be doing the RR thing to many years in a row. This year even with triple stack corn I'm not using round up on it anyway.