"Green Options: Fuel"-Hybrid Corn
Tuesday, May 13, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: Higher energy costs are fueling a boom in ethanol production. It's expected to increase roughly 45 percent this year. The corn-based fuel has been touted as a clean-burning alternative to gasoline. But in recent months, ethanol has been blamed for driving up both grain and food prices. Tonight we begin a four-part series called "Green Options: Fuel" looking at different fuels and how they might be used to ease the energy crunch. In part one, Diane Eastabrook reports on how scientists are harnessing bio-technology to help farmers around the world produce more grain for fuel and food.
BRAD SMITH, FARMER: I personally don't remember this wet of a spring.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: With mud like this, farmer Brad Smith has had to delay planting nearly 25 acres of corn in northern Illinois. Smith says at this point, every day he loses in the field could result in fewer bushels of corn harvested in the fall.
SMITH: We see a yield penalty every day after the tenth of May that we get the corn crop planted, so we're doing everything we can to try to minimize the negative effects of a delayed planting season.
EASTABROOK: In the U.S. and around the world, the pressure is on farmers like Smith to produce bumper crops. Demand for grain from food producers to ethanol manufacturers is increasing at a break-neck pace. So the challenge for grain producers is how to feed and fuel the world with a finite amount of farmland and obstacles from mother nature.
DUSTY POST, GLOBAL CORN TECHNOLOGY LEAD, MONSANTO COMPANY: Diane, these are drought tolerant in-breds that we have in our discovery program.
EASTABROOK: Dusty Post heads up a team that develops bioengineered corn at Monsanto. In this greenhouse outside of St. Louis, Post is developing a corn hybrid that could grow with hardly any water. She is also working on a seed variety that could produce more corn from a single plant.
POST: We're putting in trans-genes that actually allow the plant to produce more kernels. So, for example, it's been estimated that roughly three kernels more per ear translates into a full bushel of corn per acre.
EASTABROOK: Scientists have been developing different crop hybrids for hundreds of years. But recent advances in biotechnology have allowed researchers to sequence every gene in a plant and breed even more innovative varieties. Insect and weed resistant seeds have been on the market for about a decade. More recently, farmers have been able to buy a starchier corn variety that produces more ethanol. Robb Fraley, chief technology officer at Monsanto, thinks bioengineered crops are not only improving agriculture, but expanding it globally.
ROBB FRALEY, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, MONSANTO COMPANY: I think these technologies, particularly the better methods for controlling insects and weeds, the better methods for protecting against drought risk will encourage farmers to plant corn on soil types and geographies that a few years ago wouldn't have been seen as traditional corn markets.
EASTABROOK: But, bioengineered crops remain controversial because of safety concerns. While about 75 to 80 percent of U.S. farmers are expected to plant genetically modified corn this year, many countries still ban it. Currently only about 20 countries grow bioengineered crops. Richard Feltes is a grain analyst and senior research vice president for trading firm MF Global. While he thinks bioengineered crops are gaining wider acceptance and improving grain yields, he wonders if they can ever keep pace with demand.
RICHARD FELTES, SENIOR V.P. RESEARCH, MF GLOBAL: The challenge is very real and the linkage of food and fuel and these every high, ever increasing corn ethanol mandates is presenting a very daunting challenge to the corn market.
EASTABROOK: But Monsanto's Dusty Post thinks biotechnology can meet the challenge.
POST: It's a debate and we believe that the science is going to prevail because we have a product that the farmers value.
EASTABROOK: Researchers at Monsanto think 20 years from now, biotechnology could help farmers like Brad Smith double the amount of corn they are currently producing. They think that will go a long way in helping to satisfy both the energy and food needs of the world. Diane Eastabrook, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Milledgeville, Illinois.
GHARIB: Our "Green Options: Fuel" series continues tomorrow with a look at how Florida sugar producers are trying to make ethanol from pulverized cane stalks.
