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Tom McKeon


Major Crops: Cotton, wheat, canola

Years Farming: 26+

Farm Size: 14,500 acres (5,800 hectares)

Desired Benefits: Improved insect control, less cultivation, labor savings, improved early season growth due to reduced use of residual herbicides

Family: Married, 3 children

We have more to gain than to lose from the adoption of technologies.
We have more to gain than to lose from the adoption of technologies.
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Video Transcript


Cotton will always have, I think, a main part to play in the Australian rural industries – principally because of the technology that it’s been able to adopt. … The market pressures are always there, making the financial viability of … any rural industry in Australia at the moment very hard. ...

...Twenty years ago, the average yield was somewhere around 1.8 bales per acre, and now we see it up around 3-5 bales. … So yeah, there has been quite a considerable increase in yields, and it’s all been due to technology and varieties. . ...

I think there’s two quantum leaps that the cotton industry’s made. The first one was really being responsible within the industry for the … handling of chemicals. But biotechnology has really made that second leap – where we have been able to go away from some of the heavy chemistries, not only with insecticides, but particularly with herbicides. ...

What Roundup Ready has really allowed is the elimination of cultivation altogether. And cultivation is something that was causing us problems with soil structure. So yeah, there’s been a raft of improvements there from an environmental point of view. ...

... We’ve also seen, quite significant gains in crop vigor with lack of residual-type herbicides. ...

...The adoption of technology, particularly of Bollgard and Roundup Ready, has allowed us to really focus on the management of all our resources on the farm – … to revamp our whole thinking on how we manage those resources and best utilize them. ...

Now, … we can time operations, we can schedule operations … much better. … So, therefore, we can manage our workforce a lot better. … We haven’t got the pressures of … deadlines with applications, and it’s certainly simplified that management. ...

We have more to gain than to lose from the adoption of technologies. And, I certainly respect people’s … reticence to take on and adopt new technologies. But, I think, if there’s an open mindedness about the education process and learning about these technologies, I think people will come to accept them as not only being a part of what is happening, but a necessary part of what is going to happen in rural industries in becoming efficient.

Editor’s Notes:

  • Bollgard cotton contains a protein from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that protects cotton plants from specific lepidopteron insect pests.
  • Roundup Ready cotton contains in-plant tolerance to Roundup© agricultural herbicides. Roundup© 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.
  • 1 hectare = 2.5 acres

© 2007 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.