Colo, IA | NoPointRow - 7/27/2010 07:44
I heard the same thing. Monsanto got a kick in the you know what last year and they finally admitted it. I am a purchaser of Monsanto products but I cut back big time last year. Stupid pricing, more stupid payment options, and most stupid was their arrogance. Some things I have heard.... 1) VT3 will still be highly available for the coming years. (in other words the smartstax push has lost steam) 2) smartstax only $30 higher/bag than VT (i need to see it to believe it).. 3)RR2 beans only $5 bucks higher than RR1 with the option of getting treated or not. 4) new payment options (nov, dec, jan etc with discounts).... I am sure this will only last one year till the "arrogance factor" comes back to play..... Hopefully they keep some of their original VT3 workhorse hybrids around......
Monsanto screwed up. We all know it. The farmers know it. The dealers know it. They know it. The question now is, how will they change moving forward as far as changing the things they screwed up?
As you said, they decoupled Acceleron and you will have the option to put Acceleron on RR1 or RR2Y beans if you would like. If you want a naked bean or a Cruiser treated RR2Y, you can have that. You have choices.
Monsanto backed off using Smart Stax as the base platform and will have new VTTriplePro and VTDoublePro varieties. in addition to Smart Stax. This is good news for those that have been corn on corn and rotating between RR and LL corn. Now you still have a RR option from Dekalb and you can get your LL option from a different company in the off years. It also means that if you do not need a fully traited seed, you have options with fewer traits if you would like.
Monsanto also increased the number of zones for zone pricing. I believe they added two zones making it 12 or 14 zones (Pioneer has like 26). This will hopefully give a more equitable price for your zone based upon value of the traits and yield potential.
Monsanto got rid of using Farm Plan for early pay discounts. Farm Plan will still be involved for the Flex Plus and Zero percent interest plans, but not for the early cash program.
VT3 pricing sounds like it will remain steady from last year and Smart Stax will be roughly $30 higher. Will people move to Smart Stax? That will depend on what yields we see it have this year. But I believe Smart Stax is supposed to be like 25% or less of what we have to sell so they are not pushing for it to be a monster product.
The bottom line is for the first time since I have been a dealer, I actually feel Monsanto listened to their customers. I know it has come far to late for many farmers and some will never look at Monsanto because of things that have happened in the past. Will Monsanto continue to listen? I have no idea. Time will tell. But for now, some of my major complaints have been positively addressed it appears. |
DK 60-18
