Extremely interesting speech; note section relating to potato ag economics...
(from the speech)
To illustrate this point, I'd like to use an example from Monsanto's own experience -- namely, the NewLeaf Plus potato, which we introduced last year in the United States.
The NewLeaf Plus potato is genetically improved to resist two common threats: the Colorado potato beetle, and the potato leaf roll virus. Ordinary potatoes don't have this protection, of course -- so the pests must be controlled in conventional ways, at a tremendous cost to the environment.
In a single year, the environmental load in the United States involves 4 million pounds of raw materials to make insecticides, resulting in 2.5 million pounds of manufacturing wastes. The formulated product is then packaged in 180,000 containers...before some 150,000 gallons of fuel are consumed to transport and apply the insecticides on the potato fields. Even after all that effort, less than 5 percent of the product actually reaches the target pest.
Compare that wasteful process to the NewLeaf potato. The bioengineered plant has been given genetic instructions which allow it to use sunshine, air and soil nutrients to make a biodegradable protein that affects just one specific insect pest, and only those individual insects that actually take a bite of the plants. Therefore, the genetically improved potato effectively eliminates the waste inherent in conventional pest control methods. It also spares the lives of beneficial insects which previously would have been killed by broadcasting a broad spectrum insecticide
(full text)
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