Monsanto, DuPont tackle food security at World Food Prize
DES MOINES, Oct. 16, 2013 – Agribusiness leaders
participated in the World Food Prize festivities in Des Moines today, lending
their perspectives on food security to the conference's Borlaug Dialogue program. And officials
from DuPont and Monsanto agreed: It’s time to open up dialogue with a
wider array of stakeholders.
“The discussions around food security for the past five
years, whether they are in the boardroom or the classroom or the Roosevelt
Room, have increased tremendously,” said Jim Borel, executive vice president of
DuPont. But he stressed that the dialogue needs to move “beyond a single
country or industry or sector.”
Monsanto President Brett Begemann asked agriculture and food
interests for a “little less conversation, a little more action.” “If we only
had a gallon or a liter of water for every hour we’ve spent talking about how
we’re going to…pump that water out of the ground.”
Begemann also touched upon a point echoed earlier in the day
by Monsanto Executive Vice President and 2013 World Food Prize Laureate Rob
Fraley: The seed company, both said, needs to do a better job communicating
with the consumer.
It’s a touchy point for Monsanto, which has received special
criticism during this round of the World Food Prize for its involvement in
biotechnology. Anti-biotechnology protestors
are expected to descend upon Des Moines tomorrow as Dr. Fraley and his fellow
recipients – Dr. Mary-Dell Chilton and Dr. Marc Van Montagu – receive honors
for their groundbreaking work with genetically modified (GM) crops.
Begemann, whose company has also been criticized for
fostering so-called “corporate,” large-scale agriculture, also used his remarks
to focus in on the use of new Monsanto technology on smallholder farms.
“Innovation is important at both levels,” he said.
Monsanto’s work, particularly with new kinds of data, is “not about how you
make a smallholder farmer and turn them into a large commercial grower.”
This month, Monsanto acquired the San Francisco-based
Climate Corporation, which uses extensive weather data to provide appropriate insurance
to farmers.
Alluding to the purchase, Begemann says improved data will
help “the smallest of the small (farmers) in India or Africa” and huge
producers alike to “make better decisions to raise a better crop.”
#30
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