Posted on 23-12-2002

Monsanto Lowers Land Values

The US is being hit by Roundup Ready resistant weeds and an independent
market research study, which has been discreetly circulating and has been
seen by GM WATCH, says Roundup Ready resistance is set to hit the economic
value of farmland wiping around 17% off US land rentals. What's more, 46%
of the farm managers surveyed in the study said weed resistance to
glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, is now
their top weed-resistance concern.

The report warns, "Suddenly, glyphosate-resistant weeds have become more
than an in-season production and profitability issue. They can also affect
the long-term value of farmland". It also says, "These survey findings
should make both farm managers and landowners take notice" because "The
economic consequences are significant" and can represent for landowners "a
major loss of cash flow".

Glyphosate is being massively used in North America thanks to Monsanto's GM
herbicide-resistant 'Roundup Ready' crops. But there is growing concern
among weed scientists and land owners about the emergence of
glyphosate-resistance. As the report notes, "The high volume of glyphosate
being used across the country as a result of RR technology adoption makes
this a very real concern for growers, professional farm managers and the
owners of farmland." Glyphosate-resistant marestail has already been found
in Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. Marestail (horseweed)
is a prolific seed producer and the seeds are easily blown around by the
wind so this is a major problem. But the problem doesn't stop there.
Glyphosate-resistant rigid ryegrass has been reported in California. Weed
scientists in Iowa and Missouri are already testing waterhemp from fields
that seem to be showing more tolerance to glyphosate. There are also
complaints about marginal control of velvetleaf, ivyleaf morningglory and
lambsquarters control with glyphosate.

The latest bad news for Monsanto, which has always promoted Roundup as a
way of simplifying farm management issues, comes courtesy of its main
rival, the world's largest biotech company, Syngenta, which commissioned
the market research study report and has been quietly circulating it to
farmers and landowners via its PR company, Gibbs & Soell. Syngenta hopes to
profit from the wave of concern over Roundup resistance as people rush to
use extra chemicals, and crop rotations not involving RR crops, to try and
head off the build up of glyphosate resistance on their land. But American
famers using Roundup Ready crops could be headed up a cul-de-sac.

According to weed scientists, such as Iowa State University's Mike Owen,
it's doubtful whether this kind of resistance management will be viewed as
economically feasable at elast in the short term. As Owen told a
packed-out meeting of North Central Weed Science Society in St. Louis
recently, he expects growers to try and carry on using glyphosate in the
same way to try and avoid the extra expense of other chemicals until they
are finally forced by resistance to switch to something else. But an
article reporting on the Weed Science Society meeting concludes, "With few,
if any, new blockbuster chemicals in the pipeline, the question may become
whether there will be alternative programs to switch to if glyphosate loses
its effectiveness." [see "Glyphosate resistance dominates weed science
meetings", Mike Holmberg, Farm Chemicals Editor, Successful Farming
December 6, 2002, www.biotech-info.net/dominating.html

Among the CONCLUSIONS in the Syngenta report:

*Specific weed resistance can reduce a farm's rentable value by 17 percent

*The greatest weed-resistance concern is glyphosate tolerance in RR crops

*More than half of farm managers placed it ahead of their concerns about
weed resistance to atrazine, Pursuit, ALS herbicides or propanil

*Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of these professional farm managers expect
the importance of glyphosate tolerance to increase in the future when
determining rental values and land appraisals. "Given the increasing
adoption of RR technology in corn,soybeans and cotton,these professional
farm managers and rural appraisers felt the importance of
glyphosate-resistant weeds will increase in the future. Overall, 63
percent said it will become a bigger problem."

*Almost half (47 percent)now require practices to manage weed resistance...
This is expected to grow to 54 percent in the future

*Seventy percent said the use of weed resistance-management practices
already influence their tenant selection.

The report also looks at western Australia, where weed resistance to
herbicides is becoming a big problem for land productivity. Syngenta's
10-page 'White Paper' describing the research and the results is available
as a pdf (requires Acrobat) on line:
www.ecast.protusfax.com/redirector.asp?URL=http://www.syngentacroppro
tection-us.com/Resources/Prod/Touchdown/Land_Values.pdf&BID=45925538&EID=4491

Or e-mail your request for a copy of the report to Jennifer McManus of
Gibbs & Soell at jmcmanus@gibbs-soell.com