After years of playing defense on the topics of biotechnology and GMOs, Monsanto has gone on the offense in recent months.
Leading the charge is Monsanto chief technology officer Robb Fraley, often referred to as the father of agricultural biotechnology. Fraley was in Lincoln, Nebraska recently for a presentation at the University of Nebraska.
“Typically, when I’ve come to Nebraska in the past, it’s been to meet with growers—and I still do a lot of that—but now I’m meeting with consumer groups and folks involved in the nutrition and health industries to explain the importance of innovation in agriculture,” Fraley tells Brownfield.
To help make his point, Fraley uses this analogy.
“I don’t know many people who walk into their doctor’s office and say, ‘I’d like the same medicine my grandparents had in the 1950’s’,” he says. “We all want the latest tools—treatments and medicines.”
Fraley says the issue is global food security. To meet the challenge of feeding more than nine billion people by 2050, Fraley says, agriculture must continue to develop and have access to the latest innovations and technologies.
“Not only to ensure that we have adequate food supplies, but that it’s the safest and most nutritious food that we can put on the table,” Fraley says, “and that we can produce it in a way that minimizes agriculture’s impact on the environment.”
Fraley believes Monsanto’s efforts to connect with the general public, along with the work being done by others in the ag and food industries, are starting to make a difference.
Source: www.brownfieldagnews.com