The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the International Center for Technology
Assessment (ICTA) should submit their February 2007 cotton "report" for a
fiction-writing prize. They have taken the art of cherry-picking
information to suit their anti-biotechnology agenda to new lows.
They purport to speak for cotton farmers and the cotton industry. This
"report" is an attempt to create an illusion of opposition to Monsanto's
proposed acquisition of Delta and Pine Land Company. In reality, the vast
majority of cotton growers and the cotton industry are neutral to positive
on the transaction.
If CFS and ICTA were truly concerned about farmers, consumers and the
environment, why are they opposing cotton technology that replaced 20
million pounds of pesticides in U.S. cotton production alone in a single
year and boosted farm income in U.S. cotton production by $290 million in a
single year? (NCFAP 2005) The fact is that cotton farmers have chosen to
plant cotton seed with biotechnology traits for more than a decade because
the technology works and provides them with real economic and environmental
advantages.
Monsanto brings its trait technology to growers through seed companies it
owns as well as through licensing agreements with independent companies.
Growers determine each and every year not only which seed varieties they
wish to plant, but also whether or not those seeds contain biotechnology
traits. Monsanto and its seed licensees compete for a growers' business
each and every year by providing valuable products to the market, where the
growers ultimately decide which seed varieties to plant, and whether or not
those seeds contain biotechnology traits.
