By Laurie Burstein
Sustainability is a matchword of our time. Meeting the worldÕs growing food, fiber and fuel needs; conserving natural resources; and improving the environment have become topics for the headlines. At MonsantoÕs global headquarters in Creve Coeur, these arenÕt merely trendy catch phrases. Monsanto is taking action in St. Louis and around the world to produce more and conserve more, while helping improve the lives of farmers.
In June, Monsanto chairman, president and CEO Hugh Grant announced a three-point sustainability pledge, which includes:
- Developing seeds that enable its
customers to double their yields in corn, cotton and soybeans by 2030
vs. 2000 production.
- Helping farmers conserve by one-third per unit of output key natural resources they rely on, such as water and energy.
- Helping improve farmersÕ lives here
and around the globe.
This is not a commitment made lightly, Grant noted in a Commerce Magazine interview. It represents an achievable goal meant to further the company's efforts to help find solutions for growing global demands on agriculture for food, feed and fuel.
"For more than 18 months, we've been engaged in conversations with a variety of sustainability experts," Grant says. "Global population is projected to be nine billion in 40 years. This trend, combined with dietary shifts taking place in emerging economies, means that to meet the world's food demand, agriculture must double food production." Grant adds, "Experts tell us that means producing as much food in the next 40 years as was produced the previous 10,000 years. And it must be produced in a manner that conserves resources. At the same time, we must address the needs of farmers around the world, particularly those resource-poor farmers who live on less than $1 a day. These represent enormous challenges for all of agriculture, and our commitments underscore what our role is in helping to address these issues in a sustainable way."
As a company focused solely on agriculture, Monsanto is producing better seeds, in part by developing technology essential to sustainable agriculture. "We spend more than $2 million a dayÑmore than any company in the world on research in seeds and seed traits," Grant says.
If the company is successful in delivering on its commitments, farmers will have access to seed that enables them to lessen their environmental footprint. Current products are already making a difference.
"We've developed plants that result in better weed control and encourage the use of conservation tillage, and that reduce the use of pesticides, all while steadily increasing crop yields," Grant says. "In the next several years, we hope to introduce plants that use water more efficiently and are better protected from drought or insufficient water, as well as plants that use nitrogen fertilizer more efficiently. And we've developed plants with healthier oils to address consumer needs."
Building a Better Seed
Monsanto's first sustainability goal is to develop better seeds and double yields in corn, cotton and soybean crops by 2030, compared to a base year of 2000. A key to unlocking this additional yield potential is using advanced plant breeding techniques and tools. Heading up Monsanto's breeding effort is Ted Crosbie, vice president of Global
Plant Breeding, who grew up on a farm in
Iowa, and still farms more than 500 acres there.
Crosbie has spent his 30-year career in plant breeding, the last 12 with Monsanto. He defines sustainability in simple terms.
"Our goal is to produce more food that's better quality with fewer inputs, such as water and fertilizer, and less impact on the environment," Crosbie explains.
Monsanto's plant breeding efforts are far-reaching, with researchers stationed in 20 countries. In the Midwest, Monsanto's plant breeding center in Iowa is home to key research using advanced breeding techniques to develop plants that require less water and nitrogen.
"We have developed some powerful tools using molecular breeding techniques," Crosbie says. "This allows us to track and move individual genes to increase crop yields while conserving resources. We are using these new technologies to breed corn that uses nitrogen more efficiently."
Crosbie says Monsanto interacts with
farmers in the U.S. and all over the world, and has breeding programs in every country where corn is an important crop. Closer to home, he recently met with 150 farmers at his farm in Iowa for a field day to talk about new technologies Monsanto is using. Crosbie showed farmers 24 experimental corn hybrids, with half using germplasm that came from outside the United States.
With new seed technology, Monsanto can breed crops geographically for local conditions. "The germplasm that we need in Iowa for drought-tolerance is probably in Mexico while the germplasm we need for heat-
tolerance is probably in India, for example.
We move more than one million breeding lines a year around the world, looking for germplasms that arenÕt in the locality in order to produce better crops," Crosbie explains.
Crosbie adds, "The new technology allows us to look at plants in more depth than ever before and improve them faster. We have powerful tools to produce more that's better with less."
Biotechnology
High Tech Agriculture
Monsanto has built its business on seeds and traits. Using the tools of modern biology, mainly breeding and biotechnology, the company looks for ways to help farmers do more with less. And while Crosbie's focus is on breeding, Steve Padgette, a 24-year company veteran is focused on the development and discovery of new biotechnology traits that will improve the company's pipeline of new corn, soybean and cotton products.
"With growing demand for food and fuel with less land for farming, the only way to deliver more food for the planet is to increase the yields of the crops that we have on the land that we have," Padgette, vice president of Biotechnology, says. That's the sustainable way to go instead of bringing more land into agriculture."
Monsanto spends 10 percent of its sales on research and development with much of it going to crop improvement, including new seeds and biotech traits that allow growers to capture the full yield potential.
The first biotech crops were launched in 1996. Today, biotechnology is the most
rapidly adopted technology in agriculture. Cumulatively, this technology has been planted on more than one billion acres around the world since it was first made available.
Padgette explains that Monsanto's first generation of biotech crops focused on traits to help farmers control weeds and bugs. This allowed farmers to replace large amounts of pesticides they sprayed, since the "bug controls" were in the seed.
"For cotton farmers in the Mississippi Delta, for example, prior to our insect-resistant biotechnology traits, growers might have sprayed their cotton crop 12 times a year with pesticide. Now, with the new technology, the average is just two times per year," he notes.
"One of the most exciting products coming out of our St. Louis research facility is nitrogen-efficient corn," he says.
"This will allow corn to have higher yields using less nitrogen. Another major project we are working on here is using single biotechnology traits to improve yield no matter what the environment. Other big projects out of St. Louis are the next generation of insect- and weed-control products."
Monsanto's largest research site is at the company St. Louis headquarters in Creve Coeur, with another site in Chesterfield. Padgette says the St. Louis region is the core of the company's biotech research efforts.
"The new technologies we are developing in St. Louis and in our other research facilities will have an impact on improving food production around the world. As the largest seed company in the world, our scientists are really focused on reaching our goal of doubling yields by 2030 using new technology," Padgette says.
He adds, "Sustainable agriculture is the greatest challenge we have. Monsanto recognizes this challenge and, with agriculture being such a vibrant field and St. Louis at the center, we have the talent and innovation to contribute to this crucial area for the world."
Improving Farmers' Lives
Ask Kerry Preete, vice president of International Commercial Business, about the companyÕs efforts and heÕll tell you five major issues affect sustainability: food and fuel,
climate change, energy, water, and Africa.
These issues are the backdrop of Monsanto's commitment to help improve farmers' lives.
"As we look at these five issues facing the world today, agriculture is a big part of the solution, and Monsanto has a great opportunity to play a large role," Preete says.
In Malawi, one of the poorest countries in Africa, Monsanto has created local partnerships and worked with farmers to help them become more self-sufficient. The Millennium Village is an arm of the Millennium Promise organization. Monsanto has made a commitment to the program through 2010 to donate high-quality hybrid maize seed each year to the villages in Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, enough to reach 24,000 small shareholder farmers. Under this effort, growers were able to produce enough corn to not only meet their needs, but to have a surplus and begin exporting grain to other parts of the country
"We work with farmers around the world, many of whom are farming small pieces of land as a way to feed their families. We get a chance to see first hand that agriculture
is the foundation of a stable economy and social society," Preete observes. "It is the responsibility of companies like Monsanto who have the opportunity and the technology to help be part of the
stabilization and development of these economies."
It is through public-private partnerships such as the Millennium Village project and others that the company is able to fulfill its commitment to help improve smallholder farmers' lives. This spring, a partnership to help develop drought-tolerant maize varieties for Africa was announced. The Water Efficient Maize for Africa project links together the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, Monsanto, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, and agricultural research stations in four African countries, to make drought-tolerant corn available to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
Grant agrees the true measure of Monsanto's success rests with farmers. He says the company is working with others on joint projects that will ultimately help improve farmers' lives.
In addition to these efforts, Monsanto will establish a five-year, $10 million grant for rice and wheat research to be administered by a panel of world experts on food production in developing countries.
"We know that in order to make a difference in many parts of the world, it will take a diverse set of groups working togetherÑ including governments, non-government organizations, and private companies. It will take technology and, most importantly, it will take cooperation," Grant says. "I'm optimistic that through technology and partnerships we can help meet the needs of the
21st century."
Monsanto: Going Green Close to Home
Monsanto’s sustainability efforts aren’t just focused on its customers. The company’s commitment
to the environment is also evident at its global headquarters campus in Creve Coeur. A few of the
corporate environmental efforts are noted below:
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| LEED Certified Data Center |
In the fall of 2007 Monsanto's IT team moved into a new, freestanding data center on its Creve Coeur campus that spotlights the company’s commitments to sustainability by attaining LEED certification for green building practices. This means that the construction process and ongoing use of the facility follow methods that minimize impact on the environment.
The new data center replaces the 1960s era facility originally housed in the campus’ G building. The new structure provides triple redundancy for electricity and HVAC, protection from hurricane-strength storms, and the flexibility to meet Monsanto's future computing needs for several decades.
Monsanto's dedication to sustainable practices throughout the data center project recently caught the attention of the global IT industry when Computerworld ranked Monsanto as one of the top 12 Green IT companies for 2008.
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| Campus Shuttles Run on Biodiesel |
For nearly two years, Monsanto’s three on-campus shuttles that provide employee transportation around the campus have been operating on B20 biodiesel fuel, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent petroleum diesel.
The smaller shuttles result in a three mile-per-gallon efficiency increase and a 20 percent savings in fuel costs. The cleaner burning biodiesel provides a 20 percent reduction of unburned hydrocarbon emissions, and a 12 percent reduction in both particulate matter and carbon monoxide emissions.
By using B20, Monsanto is reducing the environmental impact of its shuttle buses while contributing to domestic energy security and the American economy.
In addition to the three biodiesel shuttles, the Creve Coeur site also has two biodiesel freight trucks.
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| Creve Coeur Campus Wildlife
at Work Certification |
Amid an urban setting, Monsanto’s
251-acre Creve Coeur campus is widely recognized as a corporate site where wildlife is abundant and valued. The site received its first Wildlife at Work certification by the Wildlife Habitat Council in 1993. It expects to receive notification of recertification this fall.
The company has an active wildlife management plan that is
managed by talented, wildlife-savvy Monsanto personnel in an ecologically sound way that benefits the community at large. Restored native prairies, woodland habitat, native wildflower garden and an enhanced habitat for migratory and breeding birds are among the achievements of the wildlife management team.
Many staff members at Monsanto have expertise in botany, ornithology and entomology, providing a natural platform for employee education.
Bird walks, insect walks, educational
presentations and wildlife demonstrations are a part of the Creve Coeur team’s program.
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