Looking back nearly two decades to the commercial introduction of GMO crops in 1996, Monsanto executive vice president Robb Fraley says the avid adoption by farmers of the technology exceeded his expectations. “They’ve been the fastest-adopted tool in the history of agriculture,” Fraley told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He also said, “I wouldn’t have believed in 1980 (the dawn of genetic engineering) that we’d still be talking about GMO crops and still having some of the controversies that we face today.”
Asked about exciting prospects for the future, Fraley said, “New technologies in plant breeding using gene editing technologies and other tools are creating better and faster ways to precisely modify genes and come up with new and better combinations … We are also seeing a huge advance in data science tools.”
During the interview, Fraley appeared to anticipate the conclusion on Thursday by a European food safety panel that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, is unlikely to cause cancer in people. “EPA has just concluded an updated review and we expect them to release their findings shortly,” said Fraley, noting EPA previously rated the herbicide as safe. In March, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, said that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Monsanto began sale of soybeans genetically modified to tolerate Roundup in 1996. Roundup Ready corn went on the market in 1998.