3-2 LOA Songstad Ag and Science

Dr. David Songstad's education in plant biotechnology and agronomy led to a career working for both Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred/DuPont, where he led research teams that developed the enabling technologies leading to the first commercial transgenic corn. He has more than 40 journal publications and 5 issued patents. He has also edited books on biofuels and sustainable agriculture. Dr. Songstad was elected President for 2013-2014 at the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. Songstad currently serves Cibus as Director of Research/Cell Biology. "We have to be willing to be open-minded with regards to every aspect of technology, every aspect of agronomic's, not just in the United States but throughout the world. For example, while bio-tech traits have a proven big impact for farmers in the United States. And, frankly, throughout the world now too. In addition, some of the improvements on the ag engineering side in terms of communicating what we know, in terms of GPS coordinates with the boom of a central pivot irrigation unit where it can literally communicate with the satellites to understand when is the right time to irrigate, or even the sprayers, with a farmer making a pass over the field doing a U-turn and all of a sudden, the spray boom is going down one row that has already been sprayed, well, that particular sprayer turns off. That is really cool. That is just the tip of the iceberg, I think. As we go forward in the years to come, we are going to see more more technology applied with agriculture.