May 20, 2015
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As the month of May gets into full swing, Europe is a hive of activity celebrating food and agriculture. This buzz is of course led by EXPO Milano 2015, which kicked off its 6-month-long celebration of the food we eat on the 1st of May under the theme of Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.
The aim of the EXPO Milano is to embrace technology, innovation, culture, traditions, creativity and how they relate to food and diet, with a principal focus on the the right to healthy, secure and sufficient food for all the world’s inhabitants. We couldn’t agree more with these aims, and we have long been proud to champion them.
At Monsanto we also have another reason to celebrate. This May marks the first anniversary of this blog.
The initial reason we started this blog was to raise awareness of the issues facing the food and agriculture sector and the people who depend on it in Europe and Africa. It is not a blog about Monsanto so much as a place to exchange views on food and agriculture and Monsanto’s role in helping a balanced meal more affordable for everyone. At the same time, we set out to tackle some of the many misconceptions, myths and outright mistruths about Monsanto with which the Internet is rife.
As one of the most important sectors in Europe, food and agriculture not only feeds Europe, but also employs around 4.8 million people — the vast majority of which are small businesses. We at Monsanto play our part in this by selling seeds to farmers, and by continuing to invest about 10% of our revenues in the research and innovation that helps make farmers’ lives easier by helping them do more with less. We passionately believe in what we do, and contrary to a lot of what is said about Monsanto–on the blogosphere and off-line–we believe we have a good story to tell.
By starting this blog, we also wanted to talk science and the science behind our business in Europe, and we aimed to provide helpful news and views to people looking for information about Monsanto and the world in which we live.
The blog also talks about the people, values and the community stories that underpin our business as well as the stories of some of the many farmers who grow Monsanto seeds, including Serbian farmers who benefited from donated seeds following record floods there a year ago and Soma Amadou, a farmer successfully growing biotech cotton in Burkina Faso.
From some of our very first blog posts talking about Monsanto Myths and Facts, to our most recent post talking about our 2014 Sustainability Report, we hope you have enjoyed reading our blog as much as we have enjoyed writing it and we look forward to continuing to tell our story and to respond to your questions.