Date: 2025-02-05 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00005638
Food ... Agriculture
Genetic Modification ... Monsanto
Monsanto Is Getting Into the Climate Data Business ... Eager to provide better climate and weather data to its farmers, agriculture giant Monsanto has bought The Climate Corporation for $930 million.
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Monsanto Is Getting Into the Climate Data Business
Monsanto, a company known for its widespread use of Genetically Modified Organisms, including Roundup Ready crops, is hoping that that data will help them determine how extreme weather events will affect their farmers’ crops.
Eager to provide better climate and weather data to its farmers, agriculture giant Monsanto has bought The Climate Corporation for $930 million.
The Climate Corporation is a financial services company that collects weather and climate data from 2.5 million separate locations, and then combines that data with 150 billion soil observations and multiple forecasts from major climate change models to determine risk analysis for farmers for a given period of time. Using that analysis, the company provides farmers with insurance that protects them in the case of extreme weather. It also provides the data to farmers to help them figure out, in any given year, the best seeds to plant as well as the time of year to plant and harvest.
Monsanto, a company known for its widespread use of Genetically Modified Organisms, including Roundup Ready crops, is hoping that that data — all 50 terabytes of it — will help them determine how extreme weather events will affect their farmers’ crops.
“A farmer will buy seed that is optimally suited to his land … and our service will help him make a decision about when to plant, how much nitrogen to put down, when to harvest, what the expected yield is each day,” Climate Corporation CEO David Friedberg told Tech Crunch. “So our product really complements what Monsanto’s product set is today.”
Monsanto’s decision to invest in climate data isn’t surprising. Climate change poses a huge risk to farming around the world, as extreme weather and shifting weather patterns create unpredictable positions for farmers. Britain’s National Farmers’ Union claims climate change is the largest risk to farming the country faces, and agriculture in Australia is also likely to suffer as the climate warms. In the U.S., drought has wreaked havoc on crops in the last decade, while record-breaking rains this year drenched crops in the Southeast.
Kerry Preete, VP of Global Strategy for Monsanto, told Tech Crunch that the number one challenge the farmers he’s talked to throughout his career cite is how to deal with the variability of climate.
“As we’ve seen over the last several years, we think weather patterns are becoming more erratic,” he said. “It places a huge challenge on farmers with their production. We think a lot of the risk can be mitigated out of weather impacts through information.”
Climate Corporation’s work to advise and insure farmers against extreme weather risks also isn’t surprising — though pundits and politicians continue to grapple over the validity of climate science, insurance companies have for years treated climate change as fact.
ABOUT KATIE VALENTINE
Katie Valentine is a Special Assistant for ThinkProgress. Previously, she interned with American Progress in the Energy department, doing research on international climate policy and contributing to Climate Progress. Katie graduated from the University of Georgia in May 2012 with a bachelor of arts in journalism and a minor in ecology. While in school, she wrote for UGA’s student newspaper, The Red & Black, and was a contributing editor for UGAzine. She also interned at Creative Loafing, Points North, and in UGA’s Office of Sustainability.
PeterBurgess • 5 minutes ago Concentration of economic power is incredibly dangerous. The corporate organization has attempted to have control its business environment going back to the early days of the industrial revolution, and for a time governments around the world pushed back on the trusts and other monopolistic practices that resulted in an excessive concentration of economic power. This pushback is almost gone and we are all the worse for it. Peter Burgess TrueValueMetrics Multi Dimension Impact Accounting
Avatar Judyssmile • 2 hours ago If you believe Monsanto does anything for the good of anyone 'except for their own profit', you have not read the corrupt history of Monsanto. This is bad, very bad, news for farmers who do not wish to plant Monsanto's poisonous seeds! Would you like Monsanto''s planes flying over YOUR farm? Scary! What's to keep them from dropping a little aluminum and some other heavy metals and toxins on your farm, you who does not buy into their seeds and help to extend their profits? I hope people see that this is not a good thing as Monsanto says. Monsanto has a long, long history of greed for profit, lies for profit, and many many murders for profit. These things are documented! Monsanto is the most evil company that has ever existed. If you don't believe that, you are ignorant of their acts! This is the company that made Agent Orange and lied to the US government about how toxic it is. This is the company who destroyed hundreds of lives in Anniston, Alabama, knowingly, but persisted dumping PCBs into streams and waterways though they knew it was a killer (this is documented and there was a 700 million dollar lawsuit which they lost). Find out what happened to a town called Times Beach, Missouri. Wiped off the map by Monsanto! Well today this is who controls your food, your USDA, your FDA, and your EPA because they now have their minions in there running the show. Monsanto is the ideal example of deception, fraud, and hatred of health, freedom of choice, and the environment, that can possilby be imagined. Yes, watch for Monsanto controlled planes flying over your heads. You better be checking your drinking water and your soil! Next to Monsanto Satan could look like a saint!
Avatar JackieS Judyssmile • an hour ago Judysmile I could not have said it better!.... You are so right and all the naysayers that show up in these articles (and there are some adamant defenders of Monsanto) and go on and on about proof and tests that are inconclusive, obviously have ties with this Satanic company. When these guys are allowed by the FDA to conduct their own testing and shove this crap on the public, something is very rotten in Denmark! Between the agencies established to protect us, and the politicians elected to look out for our best interests, they are all bought off and corrupt. These poisons are, in any language, untested! And if it isn't the oil companies ruining our oceans, these cut throats are ruining our soils and foods. Plus we can only wonder what in the hell they're spraying in the air with their attempts to control the weather. God help us!!
Avatar Ruth Dilger Williams Judyssmile • 43 minutes ago I just had a discussion with some people about this topic yesterday before I saw this. Disturbing and even more control over our food freedom. Control climate, sell the seed based on what you can control. I have this feeling of dread over this that I can't articulate well.
Avatar Judyssmile • 12 minutes ago Back to you, Jackie! As an avid GMO fighter for over 4 years now, (as soon as I first got sick and learned it was GMOs doing it), I never thought I would come up against anything more dangerous and requiring more urgency than the GMOs issue. However, Jackie--it is here! On August 21st we became aware that we are being sprayed heavily and almost daily with chemicals from the sky right over our home here in central VT! On Saturday, Aug 24th it was like an aerial attack directly over our house and property. I began immediately reporting it. After our local senator spoke with the FAA (he emphasized to me how extremely courteous and nice they were -- but gave him no answers), the planes have kept coming back but always much higher in the sky after that. We get sprayed with white stuff in the daytime and black stuff in the evenings. My husband and I have repeatedly witnessed all this. We have contacted the governor (no response), Sen, Sanders (no response even though we emphasized that it was urgent and asked for a personal interview), Congressman Welch (no repsonse as yet), and Sen Leahy, who did respond but assured me we were seeing contrails and we had nothing to fear. Since all this is happening I have developed both bladder problems, and at night some breathing discomfort. That is not to mention the stress! I had to go to the doctor and a lab urine test (get this!) showed 'mixed contaminants'. Now since we got a 'major' chemtrail hit over our place again on Oct 3rd, my bladder symptoms are back. I no longer want to sit on my deck, or walk in my yard. I am sad when my border collie is outside. We have very little blue skies here anymore; and at night it is so black in our area that it is abnormal and you cannot see your own hand in front of your face. This is so urgent that we are considering leaving our home which we just purchased two years ago. We have reported and documented and even shown photos to agencies that should be responding including the Vermont National Guard. These agencies act interested at first and agree that it is an emergency when unknown planes fly over you dumping unknown junk on you; bu then they go silent and will not even return our phone calls and emails. I guess terrorist attacks from the air are not an expected thing today! Duh! Most research shows that aluminum is one of the contaminants being dumped; and that would make Monsanto one of the suspects in this operation as aluminum would soon destroy all the organic farms here in Vermont is this is not stopped. But have no fear! Monsanto has developed an aluminum resistant seed! WHEN WILL PEOPLE WAKE UP! Other people in our area who are being poisoned as well are not complaining--so no one wants to hear from us. I ask you: what if these dumpings are just bio-terrorist practice runs and some night they just wipe us all out with chemicals. Who would stop them? I have the answer to that. NOBODY! NOBODY AT ALL!!!!
Avatar redstategal1 • 35 minutes ago Oh, wow, somehow I do not believe that giving Monsanto additional Big Brother-type powers is going to be good for anyone (except Monsanto executives). I hope and pray someone will set up an alternative climate data service like the one Monsanto just bought.