Australia
January 18, 2016
The objective of sustainable agriculture is to enable farmers to meet increasing demand for food and clothing while reducing the footprint of global ag and protecting production from threats such as bugs, weeds, disease and weather. Science and innovation, along with collaboration and continuous improvement in farming practices, are vital to realising this objective.
In my view, to meet this objective we must start at the farm level because farmers play a critical role in our collective ability to realise the vision of sustainable agriculture. By working with farmers and others, we can better understand the challenges farmers face and through science and innovation, develop solutions that help them make better decisions and mitigate threats.
Anyone who has been involved in agriculture in some form understands there is always an element of the unknown, of the need to make decisions with imperfect information, but that the pursuit for better and more knowledge never stops. When we look at how we are going to meet the objectives of sustainable agricultural production in the context of larger questions about population growth, food security and climate change, it is clear we must continue to have a relentless focus on research, development and innovation in agriculture.
Without this focus, we won’t find answers to the questions we have or find solutions to the problems we face. More then that though, we won’t be able to help farmers do all they can in the pursuit of a more sustainable and secure future for us all.
To see what we are focussed on, take a look at Monsanto’s 2016 R & D pipeline http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/research-development-pipeline.aspx
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