Video Transcripts

Dr. Norman Borlaug

I have devoted my life to the global challenge of providing adequate food production for a growing world population.Forty years ago, a Green Revolution was started using improved seed and fertilizer, helping dramatically increase the harvest while sparing forest and natural areas from the plow. It took both the scientific advances and the changes in economic policies by leaders to allow for the adoption of the Green Revolution technologies by millions of hungry farmers.

Over the past decade, we have been witnessing the success of plant biotechnology.This technology is helping farmers throughout the world produce higher yield, while reducing pesticide use and soil erosion.The benefits and safety of biotechnology has been proven over the past decade in countries with more than half of the world’s population.What we need is courage by the leaders of those countries where farmers still have no choice but to use older and less effective methods.The Green Revolution, and now plant biotechnology, are helping meet the growing demand for food production, while preserving our environment for future generations.

Farmers talk about plant biotechnology.

INDIA

Vitthal Narayan Patil

A farmer would always want more yield. We hope for success. Whatever we do, we do it with an expectation of success. Biotechnology has brought that success. There is no doubt about that.

Keshavrao Bhaurao Pawar

For the last 50 years, our family had been into farming, but we did not gain anything. We were living with loans on our heads. But because of this seed, we can do so much. We got a daughter married, built a house, which we could not have done otherwise.

Kavita Keshavrao Pawar

We feel happy that our parents have been rewarded and had to work less. Because with the other cotton seeds, they had to spray the crop again and again. … And, when we get money, we get to go on a trip.

Keshavrao Bhaurao Pawar

If we keep making profit, I can help my son and also my daughter become a doctor. … If I keep getting income like this, I can do all these. If the yield will be good, we can do everything.

Eknath Shivram Pandit

This technology is going to be very helpful. … There has been a lot of benefit. This product has brought in money. With money there can be education. … I bought a truck, tractor, built a house, dug a well. … Before we would use an ox cart and go to sell. … Now we use a tractor because it can go fast and can come back fast too. So now we feel good. … I am more enthusiastic about farming. It’s worth it now.


SPAIN

Pedro Lerín

The difference in my business, between now and the way it used to be 10 years ago, is huge. It has changed completely.

By planting transgenic corn, for example, we have a better yield, cleaner grain and a better quality. … Truly it is very beneficial — a very big advantage. Biotechnology means a lot to me and my family. To begin with, it saves us from having to apply two or three treatments to the corn, which mean many, many hours of work. This extra amount of time is time I can spend with my wife and my children. It takes much less worrying … And this way, we have a lot of peace and tranquility.

Ismael Purroy

For us here, it means a lot, especially in the problem years. It means the difference between ending up with a good year or with a bad year. …It makes being able to make calculations and projections easier. … You can be a bit more confident about what the production is going to be like.

Farming also is something that has influence, above all, on our kids. Because they see that being a farmer is something that is profitable — that you can live from and that you can enjoy being a farmer.


CANADA

Art Enns

We have a very short growing season over here. And, we don’t have the luxury of having a long time frame to seed, a long time frame to spray, or a long time frame to harvest. Everything is maximized to the hour — not to the day. …We just came off a year, which we basically had no summer, and yet some of the biotechnology crops that we were growing were able to mature despite the growing season being short. … And it was amazing these crops were able to make it.


SOUTH AFRICA

Elizabeth Jele

We had problems with worms in the conventional corn that were eating our yield, and we couldn’t get enough food for the family.Then after I changed to … the transgenic corn, there were no worms destroying our crops. … I’m able now to take care of my family and my kids. Their future looks good because I’m no longer spending too much time in the field managing my farm. … We were struggling to keep hunger out of our houses. Now, we have YieldGard. So if someone came and said we should stop using it, I would cry. I would cry.

Thandiwe Myeni

My husband is no more. He passed away in year 2000. I’m all here by myself. … Here, most of the farmers are female farmers. … I think, we need partnership, working together with those continents or countries that are well ahead with agriculture because every human being needs food in the stomach. You cannot do a thing without food. … And for my kids, I use the money from cotton to take them to universities.

Bethuel Gumede

With this new cotton, I was able to build a house, and buy a TV and a refrigerator. And I was able to buy some goats and a cow. … I’m also able to buy apples, oranges, and so on. … And as you can see, my family is healthy. … So, with this genetic technology, my life has changed completely.


AUSTRALIA

Betsy Turner

This is how I would like Australian agriculture to be … producing food and fiber that was at a high quality, that people wanted to buy, that we were proud to grow. … The production of Bollgard has allowed more life to live on our farm.We have life in our crops.We have life around the crops. … And people who work on the farm can live a life that doesn’t have them exposed to the use of harsh chemicals. … It’s a quality of life issue.And it’s, if you choose to be in agriculture, you can choose to live without hard chemistry.


ARGENTINA

Johnny Avellaneda

I think it’s important to have your mind open to new things. … Since the beginning I was very enthusiastic working in high technology.If we didn’t have technology I wouldn’t be working on farm. … I like investigation.I like farming with new expectations.

Rodolfo Tosar

As time goes by, whoever doesn’t adopt any new technology, I think will be left behind. … It’s brought a very important cultural development to the area. It’s had an effect on the standard of living for many of the people here. … The first thing we need to think of is human beings.

Andrés Fernández Madero

In order to be a better father, I would need many more things than biotechnology.But, without a doubt, I think that for the family, it’s helped.It’s also changed the amount of free time that one has.And means fewer worries day to day. … It surprises me.It’s a very, very important change.


PHILIPPINES

Jesus Gavino

Yes, to us farmers, biotech is really important because it has benefited us with bigger harvests.With bigger harvests, we get higher incomes. … Since corn farming is no longer as laborious with YieldGard, I now have time to take my wife to school and back.Same thing with my children.

Jerry Due

I told my son to … well to talk seriously about educations. … He’s just three years old now, but I could put some money in the bank from the harvest from the Bt corn.So, that by the time he go to school, he got already money in the bank to stay in the school.

Seferino Cosme

When I was using the conventional method of planting corn, we yielded 60 cavans from a hectare.So, I only got a little.Then after seeing this biotechnology, I decided to try it myself. … When I planted 1 hectare, it yielded 150 cavans — which is more than double what I harvested before. … that’s when our livelihood became stable, and we were able to save and build our new house. … What is important for me is what YieldGard has done to our livelihood. … I don’t want to benefit from it alone.I want my co-farmers and all the other farmers in the country to experience the good life, just as we are.

Roman Bernal

Before I planted YieldGard, I’d be so tired I could not even bring myself to give her a hug — especially after spraying.Now there’s no problem like that. … I can even kiss her now.

Adelaida Bernal

I thought it was impossible to build a big house.But with biotech, we got what we have been dreaming for, for so long.

Roman Bernal

So before I die, when I die, my grandchildren can proudly say I left them a legacy from my corn farming.That is my dream.


UNITED STATES

Jay Hardwick

Over the last 10 years, many farmers in our area — and I think this is throughout the United States — have come to realize that we have had an impact on the environment no doubt.And we have the mighty Mississippi right near us. … Farmers are taking that very seriously, and want to do something about it.

And, with the potential of biotechnology and reducing pesticide amounts on the landscape and into the water systems — is a good thing for all of us.So in our way we’re addressing those problems that are critical to the society at large of clean air and clean water.And, I like knowing that.And, I want to be a part of that.I don’t want to … fish in a polluted stream.I don’t think anybody else does.So we’re going to make some headway there.And agriculture will be a driving force in cleaning up the country.

Al Skogen

There’s a misperception out there about who’s producing the food today.And, our farm is very typical of the type of farm that is producing the bulk of the food for the world, I believe.It is a family farm.My son farms.My brother farms with me. …

We’re very careful about what we do in terms of safety — be it crop safety or safety in our own, for ourselves. … Through the advent of genetic modification of plants, which is allowing us to minimize our chemical use and so on, we’ve actually improved consumer safety tremendously.… And I’m sure of this — there’s not a case in the world where there’s been any health problems associated with biotechnology.

Terry Wanzek

We no longer have to till the fields to control weeds where we used to have to till 2, 3 times, and use more diesel, and jeopardize the soil to more erosion.… Now, we’re through crop rotation and minimum till or no till.Most of our crop this spring will be seeded with one pass. … It just has eliminated … the number of trips over the field. ...

… At one point here about two years ago … my wife came up and gave me a hug and says, “You know what is it?We farm even more acres than you used to, yet it seems like we have more free time. … And it’s like we’re more of a family, and we have more time together.” I said, “You really want to know?… It’s biotech.” …

I just can’t imagine sitting on my porch some day in my rocking chair telling my grandkids that I fought biotech.To me, it’ll sound as absurd as saying — I fought Louis Pasteur, or I fought Thomas Edison.

Gordon Wassenaar

My father lived through a very exciting time.But I really think that I’m probably going to live through a much more exciting time, because we’re starting to see this rapid change. … We’re looking at the crop growing at a faster rate.So, this means, this is freeing up a lot of crop for the ethanols, and for the new plastics, and all the new things that are coming.So … I’m very glad this is happening in a state like Iowa.You know, we like to say we are an energy state by what we grow. … We’re growing energy. …

But as far as around the world, I think it is an absolute necessity that a lot of places have got to be able to raise more food per acre. … Most people in the world — and we have to remember we’re a small part of the world — … they have to worry about feeding their families and their future generation. … I just don’t think the old conventional way of farming is going to do it. … We’re going to have to continue to use biotech.

Biotech crops have been proven for more than a decade.

9 out of 10 farmers planting biotech crops are in developing countries.

Millions of farm families are living proof of a promising future.

Plant Biotechnology.Proven.Promising

Editor’s Notes:

• Pesticides registered by the U.S. EPA will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on man or the environment, when used in accordance with label directions.
• 1 hectare = 2.5 acres
• 20 cavans = 1 metric ton
• Bollgard ® cotton and YieldGard ® corn hybrids contain a protein from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that protects the plants from specific lepidopteron insect pests. Bollgard® and YieldGard® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Company.

© 2005 Monsanto Company.All rights reserved.The copyright holder consents to the use of this material and the images in the published context only and solely for the purpose of promoting the benefits of agricultural biotechnology.