Monsanto’s Begemann Reflects on 2012
16 November 2012 
Brett Begemann, Monsanto’s President and Chief Commercial Officer, reflects on 2012, while putting drought and agriculture yields in perspective at the Morgan Stanley Chemicals Conference on Nov. 15:
“We went through a really tough year in North America and I would argue in Eastern Europe. It felt a whole lot to me like 1988. It was a horrible year, and it really put a punctuation mark on the need for increasing production in agriculture around the world. Corn stocks were already tight, drought makes it even tighter, but I don’t think the issue is just drought – I think the issue is growth in demand around the world. We are going to have to drive production gains on the same acre…Of course we will still have significant growth in our U.S. business, but more and more is coming from international businesses where we see those opportunities continuing to expand.
In a year where corn yields were depressed across the country we still delivered 8 to 10 bushels per acre increase. It shows how strong the genetics are. In the U.S., if you go back to 1988 that had 70 to 80 bushel yields when we had a terrible drought. Some would argue this year’s was worse, yet corn yields were over 120 bushels.
In the last decade we’ve had nine of our 10 hottest years, yet they were the highest corn yields on record. Technology has made a significant difference in corn yields.”
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