GM Crop Producer Monsanto Using Data Analytics To Expand Its Footprint

Nerval's Lobster writes "Monsanto is more infamous for growing its genetically modified crops than its use of software, but a series of corporate acquisitions and a new emphasis on tech solutions has transformed it into a firm that acts more like an innovative IT vendor than an agribusiness giant. Jim McCarter (the Entrepreneur in Residence for Monsanto) recently detailed for an audience in St. Louis how the company's IT efforts are expanding. Monsanto's core projects generate huge amounts of bits, especially its genomic efforts, which are the focus of so much public attention. Other big data gobblers are the phenotypes of millions of DNA structures that describe the various biological properties of each plant, and the photographic imagery of crop fields. (All told, there are several tens of petabytes that need storage and analysis, a number that's doubling roughly every 16 months.) With all that tech muscle, the company has launched IT-based initiatives such as its FieldScripts software, which uses proprietary algorithms (fed with data from the FieldScripts Testing Network and Monsanto research) to recommend where to best plant corn hybrids. 'Just like Amazon has its recommendation engine for what book to buy, we will have our recommendations of what and how a grower should plant a particular crop,' said McCarter. 'All fields aren't uniform and shouldn't be planted uniformly either.' Despite its increasingly sophisticated use of data analytics in the name of greater crop yields, however, Monsanto faces pushback from various groups with an aversion to genetically modified food; a current ballot initiative in Washington State, for example, could result in genetically modified foods needing a label in order to go on sale here. The company has also inspired a 'March Against Monsanto,' which has been much in the news lately."

Comments

Farmer types, a question for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stick to a single crop and not rotate like days of old?

Re:Farmer types, a question for you

[Sarten-X]

Because different crops are different. They require different care, different equipment, and have different market demands. That means different prices, different profits, and different outcomes. Instead of just growing and harvesting a crop, you're now managing a multi-year multi-stage process across several rotating plots, and a single bad year can disrupt the next several years of work as you try to rebuild that delicate year-to-year balance of nutrients.

I know the nostalgic image of the gentle old-time farmer is romantic, but the simple fact is that modern farms are a production industry. Just like any other production industry, there's a significant expense associated with every redesign and retooling for a new project. Generalization has some benefits (labeling food "organic", for instance), but specialization has its benefits as well (lower expenses).

Source: I grew up in farmland. When the wind blows just right, you can smell the manure from the pig farms. When it blows the opposite direction, you can smell the manure being spread on the crop fields.

Re:Farmer types, a question for you

[ShanghaiBill]

Why stick to a single crop and not rotate like days of old?

What makes you think that modern farmers don't rotate crops? I grew up on a farm. My parents and all my neighbors rotated crops regularly, and still do.

Re:Farmer types, a question for you

[Anonymous Coward]

"I know the nostalgic image of the gentle old-time farmer is romantic"
It's also smarter than you think you are. When the genetic crops fail they will ALL fail and the bio-diversified crops will reign.
What seems a "no brainer" requires one, to ask yourself questions. Like what does the continual use of roundup do to OUR genetic makeup?
Crops have been developed for centuries for particular areas and are called heirloom varieties and passed down legally to each other for eons.
Now Monsanto wants everyone to buy only theirs. But your propaganda is clearly obvious. Superior? Super? Suspect.
Don't change my world Monsanto. Go steal the farms in India like you are doing...to the farmers here with lawsuits.
Absolutely shameful on US

Re:Farmer types, a question for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Most corn acreage isn't rotated sustainably. 30% of U.S. cropland is planted in Corn, and there are counties in the U.S. where corn has been planted on 64% of the acres for 4 or 5 out of 5 years (source = satellite data analysis by USDA). 5% to 10% is the maximum acreage in the U.S. that should be planted in corn at any one time. Corn planted year after year degrades the soil, and results in much greater use of fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation water and other inputs. As corn is one of the least-efficient at utilizing fertilizer, about 2/3rds of the fertilizer runs off into waterways, creating all kinds of problems that farmers say are just not their problem.

Crop rotation systems are scalable and work well, however the U.S. subsidizes commodity corn in various ways (crop subsidies, insurance subsidies, demand mandates such as the Ethanol mandate which as 40% of our corn production going to ethanol, etc). But there are basically no subsidies for livestock, which are essential for sustainable agriculture. See the Union of Concerned Scientists recent report at http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/advance-sustainable-agriculture/healthy-farm-vision.html .

Scientists get it. Consumers get it. The only people who don't seem to get it are those who are captive to the system and benefit from the externalized costs such as pollution and the loss of topsoil...which won't effect this year's Profit and Loss statement, but will affect all our children. Buy local, support farmers who are using sustainable agriculture, support a level playing field for federal subsidies (either eliminate them or at least make them support sustainable agriculture) and call B.S. on those that say monocropping is the only way to feed the world. The only people it feeds are their short-term shareholders.

Re:schitzophrenic summary.

[MickyTheIdiot]

Quite frankly the beef(s) *I* have is that is with suing farmers whose crops show the "patented" gene through cross pollination (because that's how nature works) and forcing GM farmers to strict contracts that don't allow them to keep seed for next years crop.

There are a lot of STINKY business practices going on here. It isn't just about the fact that they've bribed officials to write laws outlawing GM labeling or bribed officials to pass a law that makes sure they have no liability for *anything*.

they're still big AG

[jsepeta]

Just because Monsanto invests in IT as a competitive advantage doesn't mean they're not acting like an Agricultural bully. It may be great for stockholders, but they're threatening the entire world's food supply by modifying plant DNA so that one year's crop cannot be used to plant next year's crop. That's not playing GOD, that's playing Shiva, the god of destruction.

Re:Come on guys, have some ethics

[Black Parrot]

No, the argument is that we'll end up with a global GMO monoculture, which will lack the variety to withstand some new pest or other threat, and then we'll have a global famine.