The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

194 the world according to monsantothe sale of a pesticide, because the gene itself was the pesticide, designedexpressly to kill the corn borer, a very common corn parasite. Robert Shapirotherefore secured payment for this performance from Pioneer Hi-Bred andcarried away the sum of $38 million in full payment. In both cases, theamounts paid by the Des Moines seed dealer turned out to be trifling in lightof the huge success that both GMOs had immediately, principally withRoundup Ready soybeans. When he became CEO of Monsanto in April 1995,Shapiro tried to renegotiate the two agreements, without success.“It was the most rapid and enthusiastic adoption of a technical innovationin the history of agriculture,” according to Charles, who reports thatRoundup Ready soybeans covered 1 million acres in the United States in1996, 9 million in 1997, and 25 million in 1998. 34 To understand the initialenthusiasm for Roundup Ready crops, you have to put yourself in the shoesof an American farmer such as John Hoffman, vice president of the AmericanSoybean Association, considered close to Monsanto.I met him at harvest time in 2006 on his huge Iowa farm, whose size hedidn’t want to reveal. “Before I used the Roundup Ready technique,” he toldme in the middle of a transgenic soybean field of several dozen acres, “I hadto plow the earth to prepare a seedbed. Then I had to spray several selectiveherbicides to get rid of weeds in the course of the season. Before the harvest,I had to inspect my fields and pull up the final weeds by hand. Now, I don’tplow my fields, I spray Roundup once, then I sow directly in the remains ofthe last harvest. This is what’s called ‘zero tillage,’ which reduces soil erosion.Then halfway through the season, I do a second spraying of Roundup,and that’s usually enough until the harvest. The Roundup Ready system allowsme to save time and money.”In the summer of 1995, demonstrations were organized in the plains ofthe Midwest, and farmers flocked to them, drawn by these plants with astrange power. “‘We’d actually let farmers run the sprayer,’ says [a seeddealer]. ‘And then they could drive by on the way to the coffee shop andwatch the fields. It was a fantastic show. ...They were just watching it atfirst. Then they couldn’t believe it. And then they just wanted to buy it.’” 35 AMinnesota seed dealer says: “It was just a phenomenon, and I don’t know ifI’ll ever see anything like it again. Farmers were just crazy to get RoundupReady soybeans. They bought every bag.” 36So great was the enthusiasm for RR soybeans that the major Americanseed dealers besieged St. Louis to get hold of the magic gene. But Shapiro had