Economic Analysis of Roundup-Ready Soybeans :: Agriculture Economics Essays

Economic Analysis of Roundup-Ready Soybeans In 1974, Monsanto Corporation registered the chemic glyphosate for agricultural use in the United States. Monsanto marketed glyphosate, otherwise known as Roundup, as a broad-spectrum herbicide designed to kill a panoptic variety of annual and perennial grasses, sedges, broad-leaf weeds, and woody shrubs (Mendelson, 1998). Glyphosate kills such a gigantic assortment of plants and weeds by inhibiting the creation of EPSP synthase, an enzyme in plants that is required to compound the amino acid phenylalanine (Kliener, 1998). Deprived of phenylalanine, plants cannot make the proteins necessary for life, so these plants intermit and die. Since glyphosate kills nearly anything green, farmers have been forced to use Roundup as either a pre-emergence herbicide or a weed killer around the borders of their pose bea to avoid killing their commercial crop (Sij and Stansel, 1997). Despite farmers softness to spray glyphosate directly o n conventional crops, Roundup became the best-selling weed-killer in the humans (Arax and Brokaw, 1997). In 1994, Roundup had net exchanges of approximately 1.2 billion dollars, comprising 17 per centum of Monsantos total annual sales. However, by the mid-90s, Monsanto neared the expiration date on its patent of Roundup, and faced the possibility of losing the production rights of this cash cow. Desperately needing a new way to continue to reap profits from glyphosate, in 1996, Monsanto, by genetic engineering, introduced genetically modified Roundup-Ready crops, varieties of some(prenominal) commercial crops which are loathsome to glyphosate. By inserting a gene derived from a petunia that produced large amounts of EPSP synthase into the genome of several popular commercial crops, Monsanto created varieties of soybeans, cotton, canola, and corn which could produce enough EPSP synthase to overwhelm the EPSP curtailment caused by glyphosate (Kliener, 1998). Therefore, far mers can plant the glyphosate-resistant crops and spray Roundup directly on their fields, and then destroying every weed and plant except their Roundup-Ready crop. Since glyphosate-resistant crops offer the promise of a cheaper and simpler weed management process, farmers have adopted glyphosate-resistant crops at such an terrific rate that Roundup-Ready crops cover over 33 million acres world-wide (Mendelson, 1998). The advent of genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant crops has not only maintained but has greatly expanded Monsantos market share in the realm of agribusiness. Since Roundup-Ready seeds are only resistant to the broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, Monsanto sells a seasons worth of weed killer along with every Roundup Ready seed sale (Arax and Brokaw, 1997).