Giant Leaps in Bio-tech

Giant Leaps in Bio-tech

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Agriculture has entered the 20-year anniversary of plant biotechnology, a scientific advancement most closely identified with Monsanto Company. Shannon Hauf of Monsanto, who grew up on a farm, talks about the old days when biotechnology was in its very infancy. "Our summers were spent walking being fields and certainly I think as I have gotten to learn about cotton, the same can be said for those teenagers who lived in the South, they walked caught in fields in the summer. We were a little bit more sophisticated, we had the benefit of having a bean rider which means that you had teenagers riding on a bar in front of a tractor spraying weeds out of the fields and I think it's those types of memories 20 years ago that really see the benefits of biotechnology. It's just one example of many of us can remember when you think about before biotechnology.”

 

And who would have thought that we could have come so far. Never mind the whole world of GMO. What about all the work involving biological manipulation of plants in an effort to deal with drought. What about a recent story I did in which a University of Idaho entomologist was trying to find pathogen organisms that would specifically target and attack noxious weeds.

Previous ReportCounting Apples
Next ReportOR Net Farm Income