September 21, 2009· Monsanto steering clear of GM veggies · Bayer goal to triple biotech and seed sales · DuPont to hike seed prices less in 2010 · Water restrictions cost 2000 jobs in Calif. · Lime cost effective in fixing acidic soil Monsanto steering clear of GM veggies(STLtoday.com)
– The region is known for its processing tomatoes used in ketchup, soups and salsa. In mid-August, trucks zip up and down the highways overflowing with red balls destined to be chopped, canned and shipped. But what's grown here is exponentially more diverse. There are dozens of varieties of tomatoes, melons, hot peppers, onions and squash. And they're not so much for eating, but specimens for probing, prodding and extracting DNA. This small farm, about a half-hour west of Monsanto, based in Creve Coeur, got to be No. 1 in vegetable seed through a pair of acquisitions. Now, CEO Hugh Grant aims to boost profitability and market share further by using much the same playbook that made the company dominant in corn and soybeans — by building seeds that produce healthier, better tasting fruit and vegetables. Monsanto is spending about $75 million developing new vegetable seeds. Much of its budget still goes to traditional and advanced breeding. With few exceptions, it's not investing in genetically modified varieties, which involve introducing new genes to make plants resistant to pests or herbicide. It's home to about 180 breeders, pathologists and other scientists. Offices, labs and 290,000 square feet of greenhouses are surrounded by fields brimming with new and novel varieties of tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash and melons. Take the small, bright orange grape tomato known simply as No. 3756. To most people, it doesn't look different from what you might find today at the grocery store. Its creator, tomato breeder Doug Heath, believes it's destined to become a hit with consumers, retailers and growers — all of which will mean an opportunity to justify higher seed prices. On a tour of the tomato plot on a sunny mid-August morning, Heath walks down a 100-foot-long row of plants full of bright orange tomatoes that stand out like lights on a Christmas tree. The tomato is characterized by several key traits. It contains a specific "long shelf life" gene that helps it stay fresh as it travels thousands of miles to stores. It's resistant to Tomato Mosaic Virus, a scourge for greenhouse growers. But mostly, it's higher in Brix, or sweetness. A slicing tomato measures about 5 degrees Brix; a typical cherry or grape tomato is 8. This one registers near 12. "This is a favorite of my kids," Heath says, plucking one of the bulbs and popping it in his mouth. "Absolutely kid-proven. If I bring these home, they eat them like Skittles." Heath and many of the other scientists at The company added to its seed empire last year with the $800 million purchase of Netherlands-based De Ruiter Seeds Group BV, which specializes in seeds for greenhouse vegetables, a fast-growing and more profitable segment of the business. HEALTHIER TOMATOES Monsanto was developing potatoes, tomatoes and berries, including genetically modified varieties, in the late 1990s. The company left that business a few years later. Executives never lost interest, though. A few years later they saw an opportunity to leverage the company's expertise in plant genetics and biotechnology to take advantage of increasing global vegetable consumption. Vegetables are still a tiny piece of Monsanto's business. Sales totaled $744 million in fiscal 2008, just 7 percent of total revenue. Overall, it sells more than 3,000 products in 156 countries, mostly to seed dealers and distributors. Monsanto aims to boost vegetable seed sales to $1 billion by 2012 by focusing on consumer traits such as flavor and nutrition. That's a new tack for seed companies, which historically poured their energy into boosting yields and creating produce that resisted disease. Sometimes, those grower traits came at the expense of flavor. New products include Dolce Verde, a lettuce that combines
the sweetness and crunch of iceberg and the dark color and nutritional
qualities of romaine. It's being sold at 800 Tesco supermarkets in the A new sweet onion will be test-marketed in Other new products are aimed squarely at nutrition, such as high-lycopene tomatoes and broccoli that the company claims contains more cancer-fighting compounds than varieties available today. "When I talk to people who are leading nutritionists and ask them what we should do to make fruits and vegetables healthier, the real consensus I get is to make them taste better so that people will eat more," said David M. Stark, Monsanto's vice president of consumer traits. Booming demand for antioxidant-rich "superfoods" such as blueberries and pomegranates are examples of consumer interest in healthy foods, said Michael O'Brien, vice president of produce and floral for St. Louis-based Schnuck Markets Inc. "Those two items resonated with people," said O'Brien, who is part of a group advising Monsanto through his position as secretary-treasurer of the Produce Marketing Association. Monsanto is also forging relationships with companies such as produce giant Dole Food Co. The companies announced a five-year agreement this year to develop healthier, better-tasting broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach. Sano Shimoda, president and
founder of Bioscience Securities Inc., an advisory and investment banking firm
in "If you can create differentiated products coming off the farm, then there's the opportunity to create brand identification that is tied to traits," he said. "The whole point is: How can they create product identification that the consumer will pay for, that will create brand identity and that they can charge more for?" But knowing what consumers want today is only part of the challenge. It can take years to develop a new tomato, melon or pepper. And tastes vary widely by geography. Consider tomatoes: Italians want an acidic tomato. Japanese want a pinkish, sweet fruit without a hint of acid. Americans generally prefer something in between. Processed food companies and fast-food restaurants also have different demands. "McDonald's doesn't want a perfectly round tomato. They want a uniform red tomato like a sausage, so that every slice is almost the same," said John Uhlig, who runs Monsanto's food quality lab at ACCELERATING NATURE Uhlig's lab resembles a science classroom. Stacks of brown plastic bins holding basketball-size watermelons sit on the floor, waiting to be tested to see how they withstand the cold (typically, they don't). On a table around the corner, clear plastic containers of slicing tomatoes are arranged on cafeteria trays. Each box holds three or four pre-sliced tomatoes picked days earlier. The goal: to mimic how they'll hold up when they arrive at a deli or a fast-food restaurant. Over the course of a year, the lab will handle 58,000 pounds of produce, running tests on sugars, acidity and pungency. In all, more than 330,000 individual items will be bar-coded and tested for various physical and chemical properties. Much of the work is still done by hand, as are other
time-consuming chores at Meanwhile, much of the head-spinning genetic analysis that's become an integral part of the company's plant-breeding program has been revolutionized by proprietary automated systems. The speed and efficiency is a key to Monsanto's increased use of a powerful biotech tool — the use of molecular markers, DNA fragments used to identify genetic features of plants. So far, Monsanto researchers have identified more than 15,000 such markers across a dozen key crops, such as tomatoes, peppers and melons, that can significantly accelerate the breeding process. Take a cherry tomato developed by Heath. It was bred with a wild species indigenous to disease that has wreaked havoc on some tomato crops this year. In the past, crossing a domesticated tomato with a wild species would have taken a decade. With markers, the time can be cut to as little as two to three years, Heath said. "It's almost like having X-ray glasses," he said. "My assistant takes a millimeter sliver of leaf, extracts the DNA, and we have many markers we can look at." Monsanto has earned billions of dollars selling genetically engineered corn and soybean, and it even markets transgenic squash developed by Seminis in 1995 that's resistant to certain plant viruses. Yet, the company doesn't have aggressive plans to launch new GM fruit or vegetables in the near future. The company's first foray into biotech vegetables was the NewLeaf potato, which contained a gene from a microorganism that produced a toxin to repel the Colorado potato beetle — a damaging pest for growers. At its peak, the potato was planted on 55,000 acres. But fast-food giant McDonald's instructed French fry suppliers to stop using the potato. Many farmers followed suit, and Monsanto shelved it in 2001. Today, Monsanto said it was investing in only a handful of biotech products. One is an insect-protected and herbicide-tolerant sweet corn that it hopes to introduce in the product offered by rival Syngenta. A partner in eggplant, for that country. Now Monsanto is considering launching the trait in its own line of GM brinjal seeds. The projects are evidence that Monsanto continues to believe biotech traits hold promise for consumers and growers. But the scientific and business obstacles for successfully commercializing a genetically modified vegetable is steep, said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist in the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Perhaps the steepest hurdle is getting consumers to accept it. "The concept still is somewhat troubling to people," he said. Bayer goal to triple biotech and seed sales(Wire Services) – MONHEIM, German -- Bayer CropScience is accelerating the extension of its biotech
and seed business. Following a record year in 2008, the company is continuing
its strategy of expansion, aiming systematically to expand its fast-growing
business in seed and plant traits in the coming years. DuPont to hike seed less prices in 2010(Bloomberg) -- DuPont Co., the world’s second biggest seed producer, said it won’t raise prices for crop seeds as much as last year because farmers are grappling with a more difficult economy. DuPont raised average prices for soybean seeds in 2009 by 35
percent and corn seeds by more than 20 percent, Paul Schickler,
president of the Pioneer unit, said at the JPMorgan Chase & Co. 4th Annual
Diversified Industries Conference in “The economic environment and situation farmers face today is different compared to one year ago,” Schickler said. “We are going to deliver solid price increases that will be consistent with historical increases while maybe not at the level of 2009.” Profits for DuPont expects to boost seed sales and profit by more than
15 percent this year. The Pioneer unit gained 2 percentage points market share
in North American corn, the most profitable seed market, reversing years of
losses to Monsanto Co., the biggest seed producer. DuPont grabbed three more
percentage points of soybean seed sales in North American, and it also gained
in crops outside the DuPont climbed 75 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $33.90 at 4:03 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have gained 34 percent this year. DuPont won’t detail increases for 2010 seed prices until discussions with customers conclude in January, said Doyle Karr, a spokesman. Water restrictions cost 2000 jobs in
(HanfordSentinel.com) – Officials at the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority issued a statement Friday claiming100,000 acres went unplanted and 2,000 jobs have been lost on the Westside because of federal pumping cutbacks to protect the endangered Delta smelt fish. The statement refutes a document released Thursday by the
U.S. Department of the Interior that claims it’s “not true” that “water
shortages and high unemployment rates in “Interior is lacking candor in explaining and accepting the human impacts of the Endangered Species Act restrictions,” said Jason Peltier, deputy general manager of Westlands Water District. Westlands, a member of the
authority, has about 80,000 acres in “I would just say in general we look forward to ... working with the local and state government, as well as the water authorities and our other partners, to solve this problem,” said Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff. Barkoff declined to get into specifics about how much of a role environmental regulations play in the current situation. Current laws call for a certain percentage of the Central
Valley Project water to go to environmental protection and ecosystem
preservation in the delta and other areas. These rules are not suspended in drought
situations like the current one — Many of the regulations were included in the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, passed in 1992, which reserves some water for fish and wildlife protection and ecosystem preservation. But this year Westside farmers are facing additional regulations stemming from a 2007 federal court order to protect the delta smelt fish and a 2009 federal biological opinion mandating additional cutbacks to protect other fish species including salmon and steelhead. The cumulative impacts have left giant bare patches of earth on the Westside and created high farmworker unemployment in small towns like Avenal, Huron and Mendota. Westlands officials predict district farmers will lose 1 million acre-feet of water as a result of both the court order and the biological opinion. The Interior Department is right about the fact that there is a natural drought, but has tried to “minimize the role that regulatory decisions play,” said Dan Nelson, executive director of the authority. Lime cost effective in fixing acidic soil( A soil pH of 6.0 to 6.5 is optimum for most crops in Soil pH affects the availability of soil nutrients to plants. An increase in soil acidity (lower pH) reduces the amount of available phosphorous in the soil while increasing the amount of available aluminum and hydrogen. At a pH of 4.5, available aluminum and hydrogen are at toxic levels, he said. To counter these effects, an application of lime can reduce soil acidity. Liming increases the activity of organisms responsible for nitrification and nitrogen fixation and improves the overall condition of the soil. "MU research indicates that increasing the pH of a soil
from 4.5 to 6.0 through liming can increase soybean yield by as much as 15
percent," Harper said. "Given the benefits of liming, and the fact it
is one of the cheapest products farmers add to the soil, there should be no
reason the pH levels of A soil test, available through local MU Extension centers, can measure soil pH and indicate the amount of lime necessary to neutralize soil acidity. The amount of lime to apply is expressed in terms of
"effective neutralizing material" (ENM). All lime sold in "For example, a soil test may indicate that a soil is acidic and needs 1,200 ENM to increase the pH," Harper said. "If lime from a dealer is 400 ENM per ton, the farmer would need to apply three tons to correct the soil pH." The main disadvantage with lime is that it can take a long time to correct soil acidity, especially if it's not properly incorporated. MU research indicated it would take 10 to 14 years for surface-applied lime without incorporation to raise the soil pH to a depth of 6 inches. All applied lime should be incorporated for maximum effectiveness. Even with incorporation, it may take several months for lime to correct soil pH. For this reason, don't apply lime in March in an attempt to correct the soil pH for a crop you are going to plant in April. "An ideal situation would be to take a soil sample right after harvest, then apply and incorporate the recommended amount of lime that fall," Harper said. "There should be sufficient correction in soil pH by the following spring to have a positive impact on crop growth." End Transmission |
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