We know that white mold has been a challenge for some Illinois farmers regardless of the soybean variety they planted, while other farmers are seeing record yields. Variability from field to field is inevitable with new product introductions. Soil variability, tough weather, insects and disease share the same fields.

Our data over the last five years has demonstrated increased yields with Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield. We’re confident in the trait and its ability to deliver higher yield to farmers. We are still early in the harvest—the weather has been challenging for farmers to even get out to harvest their crop—but we would expect performance to be consistent with prior years.

In regards to pricing, we set the price in line with the value we expect to deliver to our customers. We’ll know more when the final numbers are in. Stay tuned.

So you use the low end of the yeild increase with a pretty low bean price and still make additional profit and you’re complaining? There is a very wide range of yields for soybeans, so for many farmers it will be worth the premium. For some farmers the numbers won’t add up and they can continue to use RR soybeans. If you’d rather give up profits because you don’t want to pay the price difference, that’s fine but it’s bad business.

You are right, it is a 42% increase from one product to the next. The problem I was seeing is that some people were thinking that we were raising prices 42% on the same product from one year to the next.

So, let’s do some math. Monsanto claims that RR2Y technology yields 7-11% better than RR tech. They claim the price this next year will be about $74 an acre. For a farmer planting RR2Y for the first time this year, his seed cost increase over his RR soys last year is about $25 an acre ($74-$49). Figure a 7% yield increase on 50 bushel beans would yield the farmer an additional 3.5 bushels. At $8.50 cash beans, that’s an additional $29.75 in revenue to the farmer. Subtract the $25 additional seed cost, and your left with $4.75. That’s a really small amount of additional profit compared to the cash that Monsanto is extracting.

This is comparing roundup ready soybeans (I believe untreated… reading Kathleen’s post it seems this way) to roundup ready 2 yield soybeans with acceleron seed treatment – if I’m not mistaken this upgrade represents an approximate 7-13% increase in yield due to “in the seed” technology (which in this case is a better placed roundup gene which avoids the yield penalty of the original product?) coupled with “on the seed” technology in the form of acceleron (cant remember the yield benefit here, I’m tempted to say 2% but that could be well off the mark) – so you’re looking at between a 9-15% increase in yield for approximately $22 per acre
(again based entirely on pricing from the post above)

With an average yield of say, 42 Bu/Ac for soybeans and a price of around $9 per bushel
(figures pulled from http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/extension/prices/grains/soybean.asp?ID=63 – obviously due to market fluctuations and hybrid performance these figures wont be exact for these particular soybeans, but I think give a decent estimate in terms of making a comparison)

at the low end (9% increase in yield)
$378/ac for RR
$412/ac for RR2Y

a $34/Ac increase which amounts to an extra $12/Ac

at the high end (15% increase in yield)

$378/ac for RR
$434/ac for RR2Y

a $56/Ac increase which amounts to an extra $34/Ac

Which, while I’m sure any sensible farmer would much rather pay RR prices for RR2Y performance (In the same way I’d rather pay a car payment for a 2002 model rather than a 2009 model) the extra outlay is more than compensated by the increase in profit. (obviously dependant on historical yield from the site you’re planting on, and where the market actually ends up at the end of the season – I dont have the patience to work out at what yield or at what price (or combination thereof) it is no longer practical to use the RR2Y beans – although I’d guess that any bean farmer out there has likely done the math and knows exactly at which point it makes sense to use the newer tech.

What’s this rhetoric about genetically modified food being proven harmful to us. Please feel free to share the facts from any research you have seen supporting this statement rather then just trying to scare us by labeling it “Frankenfood.” As for Monsanto’s pricing policies, I’m not going to stand up as a supporter of that.

Thanks for the comments. I know pricing is a sensitive issue and appreciate your insight.