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Sustainability

Corn Farming and Stewardship

What’s Sustainability?

Meeting the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

What’s Sustainability?

• • Decreasing soil erosion and use of pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation and fuel Yields continue to increase

Crop Protection

• • Each acre of U.S. cropland contains 50 to 300 million buried weed seeds Crop plants must compete with 30,000 species of weeds, 3,000 species of nematodes and 10,000 species of plant-eating insects

Crop Protection

• • Despite the use of modern crop protection products, up to 40% of potential food production is still lost every year to pests Crop protection products increase crop productivity by 20% to 50%, thereby making it possible for consumers to choose from an abundant supply of fresh, high-quality foods

Crop Protection

• • Agricultural output must double in the next 20 30 years in order to feed the world’s population. Farmers must have access to crop protection solutions to grow more food per acre Although the world population has doubled in the last 40 years, the area of land devoted to food production has remained virtually constant; crop protection products have enabled farmers to produce higher yields of their crops on less land

Pesticide Use Trends

Increasing adoption of hybrids with insect-resistant and herbicide tolerant traits have greatly reduced the need for synthetic applications of herbicides and insecticides.

Insecticide Pounds Per Acre 0,35 0,3 0,25 0,2 0,15 0,1 0,05 0 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2005 Herbicide Pounds Per Acre 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1 0,5 0 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2005 Source: USDA

Nutrient Use

• • Farmers use fertilizers to meet plant nutrient requirements and to replace the nutrients that have been absorbed by plants. By fertilizing their land, farmers are simply replenishing the nutrients removed to produce food and maintain the health of their soil.

Nutrient Use Efficiency

Year 1980 Corn Grown

6.64 billion bushels

Nutrients (N,P,K)

3.2 lb per bushel

2010

12.45 billion bushels 1.6 lb per bushel

This represents an 87.5 percent increase in production with 4 percent fewer nutrients.

Source: USDA, Fertilizer Institute

Field to Market

Field to Market: The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable

Agriculture is a collaborative stakeholder group involving producers, agribusinesses, food and retail companies, and conservation organizations striving to develop a supply chain system for agricultural sustainability. • •

Objectives:

Identify criteria for sustainable agriculture that are open to the full range of agricultural technology choices; Support the implementation of production systems that lead to broad performance improvements against these criteria.

First Report

• • Released in 2009 Looked at environmental resource indicators in five areas: – water use and quality – land use and biodiversity – soil loss – – energy use climate impact

Corn’s Impacts, 1987-2007

Corn’s Impacts, 1987-2007

Land Use Amount of land to produce one bushel of corn Soil Loss Soil loss per bushel, above a tolerable level Irrigation Irrigation water use per bushel Energy Energy used to produce one bushel Climate Emissions per bushel

37% 69% 27% 37% 30%

www.FieldtoMarket.org

• The Fieldprint Calculator is an educational tool designed to help farmers assess how some of their farm decisions affect overall sustainability.

Field to Market Members

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • American Farm Bureau Federation American Farmland Trust American Soybean Association BASF Bayer CropScience Bunge Cargill Conservation International Conservation Technology Information Center Cotton Incorporated CropLife America CropLife International Darden Restaurants, Inc.

DuPont Environmental Defense Fund Fleishman Hillard General Mills Grocery Manufacturers of America Indiana Corn Growers Association Indiana Soybean Alliance Innovation Center for US Dairy International Plant Nutrition Institute John Deere • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Kellogg Company Land O'Lakes Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences Mars, Incorporated Monsanto Company National Association of Conservation Districts National Association of Wheat Growers National Corn Growers Association National Cotton Council of America National Potato Council Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Penton Media The Coca-Cola Company The Fertilizer Institute The Nature Conservancy Syngenta Corporation United Soybean Board University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences USA Rice Federation World Resources Institute World Wildlife Fund

2010 Stanford Study

• • 2010 Report Focused on greenhouse gas emissions and high yield agriculture

2010 Stanford Study

• • Advances in high-yield agriculture have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere: The equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Key Assertions

• • Yield intensification has lessened the pressure to clear land and reduced emissions by up to 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world's total output of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

Tying It All Together

Inputs Per Acre …

Nitrogen Fertilizer Phosphorus Potash Fuel Pesticides 200 lb 50 lb 50 lb 3 gal < 1 gal

11,200 Pounds of Corn

Example: Kansas farm producing 200 bushels per acre

What’s Helped?

Precision Farming

No-Till Farming

Biotech Corn

100 90 80 30 20 10 0 70 60 50 40

Insect Resistant Herbicide Tolerant

Percentage of Corn Acres Planted

Stacked Traits 28 40 46 47 49 15 1 6 1 7 2 9 4 11 6 14 9 17 21 24 23 22 23 23 18 18 22 25 27 26 25 21 17 17 16 16

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Source: USDA, 6/30/2011

Biotech Pipeline

VT Triple Pro (Monsanto) Broad Lep - MIR 162 (Syngenta) Drought Tolerance (Monsanto/ BASF) Drought Tolerance (Syngenta) Improved Feed (Pioneer/DuPo nt) Higher Yield (Monsanto/ BASF) RW dual Mode of action (Syngenta) Nitrogen utilization (Monsanto/BASF) Nitrogen utilization (Pioneer/DuPont) Improved Feed (BASF) Agronomic Trait Quality Trait Novel Insect Traits (Syngenta)

2009 2010 201X .

Corn Amylase (Syngenta) “SmartStax (Monsanto/Dow) “Optimum” Herb. Tol.

(Pioneer/ DuPont) Increased Yield (Pioneer/ DuPont) Herbicide Tol.

(Dow) Increased Ethanol (Syngenta) Triple-mode Herb. Tol.

(Pioneer/ DuPont) Drought tolerance (Pioneer/ DuPont) Increased Ethanol (Pioneer/DuPont) Nitrogen utilization (Syngenta)

Estimated commercialization pipeline of corn biotech events. Commercialization dependent on many factors, including successful conclusion of regulatory process.

What’s Sustainability?

Meeting the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Thank You