Grain Buyers Push Back On New Traits

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Grain buyers, processors and exporters like Bunge, Cargill and ADM are telling Monsanto that they won't accept RR Xtend2 soybeans. Take that! The buyers are saying they took millions of dollars of losses on the Syngenta Viptera deal and won't stand for it again? What do you think? Will this keep desirable new traits off the market? Will it protect farmers from being stuck wtih grain they can't sell? What did the industry learn from Starlink? Can farmers be trusted to obey marketing restrictions? I think this stance is perfectly understandable from the buyers point of view. Why should they get stuck with the risk? I think it will slow down introduction of new traits. This would encourage some radical groups to focus their efforts on blocking just one or two key markets so as to block all. I don't trust farmers to obey marketing and usage restrictions. Starlink proved that when push comes to shove the farmer will stifle his conscience and sell where-ever he can get away with it. This whole issue will prompt more and more efforts to force traceability on farmers. That will mean segregated bins, machinery clean-out, higher storage and transportation costs and so forth. What difference will it make to your operation? If you rent ground out, do you care what your tenant plants on it?

[BA Deere]

I think identity preservation is a pretty tall order to expect from bulk commodity "growers".   Many of us are so scatter brained we don`t know what we plant where, the seed dealers have to come out with orange signs for the field drive saying "NO ROUNDUP".  And combine clean out...yeah that works good in theory.  What it boils down to is China will accept anything....they eat all kinds of stuff, but if they pay too much and need a excuse to back out of a contract, they can get very picky.   So, let`s not give anyone any excuses and get the seed all approved before we plant.

[sw363535]

Isnt some of this just liability protection retoric......

The bean processors are getting a fair amount of pressure from their buyers to be able to validate the product as something publicly palatible.

Will there be a way to tell if the beanoil came from RR1 or RR2

They all want to print what sells on the label,,,, and will...  What we are working on now is deniability when the bluff gets called..

🙂