Print This Page"There's a Lot of Farmer in Me"
Monsanto Vice President Jerry Steiner Reflects on His Deep-Rooted Love of Farming
Jerry Steiner, Executive Vice President of Commercial Acceptance
Growing up in New Holstein, Wisconsin, Jerry Steiner loved life on the farm. After college, he turned his interest in agriculture into a career by becoming a sales representative for Monsanto. After holding several positions within the company, he left in 2000 to gain experience outside of the agriculture industry. While he still worked in biotechnology, Steiner rediscovered his passion is agriculture, and in 2001 he rejoined Monsanto. Today, as executive vice president of Commercial Acceptance, he’s using his deep-rooted love of farming to help find ways for farmers to produce more with less. Here, he reflects on the state of farming practices today, how they can be more sustainable in the future, and how Monsanto can help farmers tackle the problems ahead.
Life on the Farm
Winters in Wisconsin are always frigid, but there was one in particular I’ll never forget. My parents went to Hawaii for the American Farm Bureau national convention, and they left our farm in the hands of my brothers, sisters and me for 10 days. I was 16 years old. We had spent our lives helping our parents with the day-to-day farm operations, so we knew what had to be done. However, right after my parents left, temperatures dipped to nearly 35 degrees below zero – so everything froze. Keeping anything in working order under those conditions is difficult, much less a farming operation being run by a couple of 16- and 17-year-old boys. For some reason our parents trusted us, and we trusted ourselves. Miraculously, things worked out, but being entrusted with the family livelihood during that harsh winter was one of many experiences on the farm that instilled a sense of responsibility in me that continues today.
Six of us kids grew up on our farm, and we had a lot of fun, but it was a tough living. We had a dairy farm, and like most dairy operations, we produced our own forage and took care of the livestock. In addition to that frigid winter, taking care of the calves, tending the fields, fixing machinery and tackling hundreds of other issues led to a wide-ranging set of opportunities to learn responsibility and management while growing up. My dad was really good at giving us authority, and I still to this day don’t know if it was planned or if he had to do it to get everything accomplished. Regardless, it was a fabulous experience to learn responsibility at such a young age, and I try to emulate some of those things personally for my own kids.
The State of our Planet
Today, when I think about responsibility, my kids and the future, one of the things concerning me most is the state of our planet and its ability to meet future needs. Today, we still have millions of people without access to adequate, safe, nutritious food – and we’ll put another 2.5 billion people on earth by the middle of century. We’re depleting natural resources at an increasing rate. Some say we’re already experiencing climate change, and the most concerning part of that is the shift in rainfall patterns in parts of the world. All of these situations are scary. Unfortunately, agriculture contributed to these challenges. Fortunately, it can find ways to help resolve them.
Jerry talks with local children in Mitundu in Lilongwe, Malawi in October 2007. He visited the area to present awards to farmers and seed distributors using Monsanto hybrid seeds.
Farmers need to get more yield out of their land, but they must also protect that land and the air around it. Agriculture has been named a key player in the degradation of our natural resources. Whether it’s soil erosion, habitat destruction, greenhouse gas emissions, pesticide sprayings or water use, agriculture can have a negative impact on our environment.
But our world could not exist without agriculture. Farmers provide our world with food, feed, fiber and fuel, things no one or nothing can survive without – and the demand is only increasing. Population and incomes are growing, and we will need twice as much food in 2050 as is produced today. Add to that the demand of biofuels and we have a tremendous challenge ahead of us. It’s not going to be an easy task, but as the world’s largest investor in agricultural research, Monsanto will help the world’s farmers meet this enormous challenge.
Today’s Solutions
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Roundup herbicide used in Wisconsin to control quack grass. It was almost like magic, and that’s why it’s still a one-of-a-kind product within agriculture. But Roundup hasn’t only given farmers more control over weeds. When combined with Roundup Ready crops, it allows farmers to reduce the number of trips across the field for tillage and weed control. This saves millions of gallons of fuel each year and with it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Equally important, it’s allowed farmers to adopt reduced-tillage practices, which greatly reduce soil erosion. Every farmer knows the value of retaining topsoil, and because soil and water are our least renewable resources, this is incredibly important to the world’s future crops.
In addition to the Roundup Ready system, Monsanto’s portfolio today includes many seed and trait technologies that can also have a positive impact on our environment. By incorporating insect protection in the seed itself, YieldGard and Bollgard products have allowed farmers to reduce pesticide applications dramatically.
But there’s still more to do.
Tomorrow’s Opportunities
There’s tremendous demand to satisfy, and the tools we have today can’t do it. We’re not going to feed a growing population the same way we’ve done it in the past 50 years. Farmers today don’t farm the way my dad and I farmed, and the same will be true of farmers 50 years from now.
As the years progress and the population keeps growing and the demands on the earth continue to increase, the most important environmental need will be to get more crops from each unit of input. This is what makes Monsanto’s focus on yield and stress so important. We won’t meet the needs of 9 billion people unless we can increase yields – and do so by producing more crops out of each drop of water, ton of nitrogen and acre of land.
Growing up on the farm in Wisconsin, I didn’t think about these things. I worried about helping Dad harvest the crops, fix the tractors and milk the cows. However, the lessons I learned on that farm shaped me into the man I am today. I’ve been truly blessed to see the world from multiple views. I’ve walked in the shoes of a farmer. I’ve traveled the world and seen how biotechnology and agriculture are improving people’s lives. And I’ve seen how much more we need to and can do.
I also can’t get farming out of my system. My wife constantly tells me we really need a farm because I can’t stop myself from farming. I have a little tomato patch with an elaborate screen shed built around it to protect my plants from deer. Farming has always been a part of my life, and it always will be, no matter where I live. There’s a lot of farmer in me. It’s a wonderful way of life, and I’m excited for its future.
