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Betsy Turner


Major Crops: Cotton, sorghum, sunflowers

Years Farming: 25+

First Planted Biotech Crops: 1996

Favorite Benefits: More wildlife in the field.  Better health and safety.

We’re living on a farm now that doesn’t use hard chemistry.
We’re living on a farm now that doesn’t use hard chemistry.
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Video Transcript


We live on the farm.  And, our house is right on the river. ... And, now that we use genetically modified cotton ... we have no need to spray the crops with products that cause drift into the river ... And the other nice thing that we’ve noticed about Bollgard is that 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.

For example, today the blokes on the farm were draining the waterways.  And when they drained them, they were just full of large crayfish and beautiful – you know – 6, 7, 8–pound yellow belly, which we wouldn’t have had had we not had the kind of farming system we’ve got in conjunction with the genetically modified crops. ...

I’m very positive about the benefits that our community’s had from being able to use biotechnology.  Not only has it helped us in our production system, but the issues related to workplace health and safety – where our men and the employees on our farm aren’t exposed to hard chemistry – is a really important issue.

And, people who work on the farm can live a life that doesn’t have them exposed to the use of harsh chemicals.  I think that is an important issue.  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.

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, that we could sell and say, “This is a safe crop.  This is a safe product.”

Editor's Notes:

  • Bollgard® is a registered trademark of Monsanto Company.
  • 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.

© 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.