Mark Twain once said, “Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.” Today, more than a century later, Twain’s comments ring true and with growing importance – especially in agriculture.
Too much water, as we saw in 2008 in the Upper Midwest, at best delays planting and at worst wipes out entire crops. Too little water, and plants struggle to produce grain that provides us with food, feed and, increasingly, fuel.
Too little water is something Coloradoans and others in the West know all too well. As someone raised on a farm and working in agriculture today, I offer that no one appreciates how precious water is more than farmers – particularly those in the West.
Experts contend agriculture gulps 70 percent of the fresh water supply every year. In Colorado, the figure is more than 80 percent. But, simply turning off the spigot puts in jeopardy the bountiful harvest we enjoy since nearly half of the value of all crops sold in this country comes from irrigated land.
So the question for agriculture is: How to produce the same yields or more and use fewer resources like water? It’s a question some of the brightest minds in academia, agribusiness and government are discussing this week at the Sustainability Management Conference here in Denver.
It’s also among other questions I challenge our researchers at Monsanto with every day: How do we help make every acre the most productive for farmers? How can we lessen the impact on the environment using new tools and technologies? The questions are big and important. But, of course, there is no simple answer and no one group can do it alone.
For our part, Monsanto invests more than $2.6 million every day researching new seeds through breeding and biotechnology that will help farmers produce more grain and conserve more resources.
This year, for example, our drought tolerant corn research advanced development phases, potentially bringing it within three years of the necessary approvals for planting in the Western Corn Belt. This is the first drought-tolerant seed in corn ever submitted for regulatory review in the United States.
More than five years of drought research trials across the United States tell us corn plants with this technology yield between 6-10 percent more grain in the face of limited water; effectively sipping their water rather than gulping it down.
We’re also working on plants that use nitrogen more efficiently and are developing products to reduce the use of pesticides and make no-till farming more profitable and practical.
We believe these advancements will push grain yields to new heights on the same number of acres to satisfy the growing demands of our country and the exploding populations of the developing world.
Biotechnology is one tool in a growing agricultural tool box to produce safe, relatively inexpensive and abundant food supplies. Use of advanced information technology, new equipment, satellite imagery, breakthrough collaborations and more have helped U.S. agriculture continue to set the pace of productivity for the world.
With relatively little public fanfare, corn yields – the amount of grain produced per acre – have surged since the 1970’s to a national average of more than 150 bushels per acre. Soybean yields continue to outpace those of other crops, like wheat and rice. Despite this success by U.S. farmers, demand for grain continues to outpace supply.
Just as local experts forecast the number of people living in the Rocky Mountain State to double by 2050, trends show the world’s population increasing to 9.3 billion people, the equivalent of the population of three Chinas, in this same period. This means the world will need to produce as much food in the next four decades as has been produced in all of human history.
The challenge is daunting. Yet, agriculture has never had a better opportunity to help solve some of the most pressing needs facing our nation and our world. As with many large and complex issues the answers sometimes start small, like a powerful technology contained in a tiny seed.
Dr. Robert “Robb” T. Fraley is executive vice president and chief technology officer of Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON), where he oversees integrated crop and seed agribusiness technology and research. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
