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Farmer Testimonials

Duane Davids

Grower, Lakota, IA

My name is Duane Davids. We farm in a family operation here, with my mother and father. We farmed around 1,800 aces here in the past, roughly 1,000 or so acres of corn, and 800 acres of beans. I guess what interested me in the Vistive program was that the last several years here I had been producing some food-grade soybeans for some identity-preserved specialty markets and the research into those genetics had been slowing down. Those beans were developing some yield-drag in comparison to what presently is available today in the top genetics. And the Vistive program offered me the best of both worlds, I felt. It offered me a top-yielding low-lin soybean as well as a program that allowed me to participate in a premium market in much the same way as I was for the food-grade soybeans. The Vistive program was one of the first programs through genetic modification that has been developed that allows the consumer the benefit of the product. The Vistive program, via the low-linolenic oil program, allows the farmers to select that low-lin soybean, grow that bean, and provide it to a processor who extracts the oil from that soybean. And that process allows the consumer to have the benefit of an oil that is otherwise unattainable.

We are entering a world-wide economy and certainly soybean producers here have realized what capabilities that other parts of the world have to produce soybeans. I think we fortunately have an advantage here. We have the ability to segregate, keep products separate, and we have top-quality farmland and skilled producers here in this area to grow this identity preservation product. I think that long-term we need to recognize the importance and value of what we have here--that these systems are in place and all we need to do to be able to ensure ourselves a strong foothold in the future of agriculture here, specifically in soybean production, is this oil extraction.

The premiums I think we're being offered to produce these beans are derived from consumer demand and I don't think that premium necessarily is to compensate us for suffering any yield consequences. I think it's just a reflection of how strongly these companies desire this low-lin oil product. If you have a desire to do whatever it takes to take the steps within your operation to gain a little bit of additional profitability at the end of the year, I think the Vistive program is something that would fit that bill.