Monsanto Chief: Water Debate Could Get Ugly

(MoneyWatch)  Someone from Dow Jones newswires showed up at Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant's speech during a conference by the Society of American Business Editors on Tuesday, and came away with the headline "Monsanto CEO: Water Debate Will 'Dwarf' Food vs. Fuel."

Scary! And quite possibly true, though it should be borne in mind that Monsanto sells seeds that have been genetically modified to lessen crops' need for water.

Reuters went with the same provocative part of Grant's speech. Its more to-the-point headline: "Monsanto CEO says drought-tolerant traits key."

Meanwhile, the folks over at Cattle Network, using another Dow Jones dispatch, decided to focus on Grant's complaint that wheat don't get no respect compared to corn and soybeans. "Monsanto's Grant: Wheat Remains 'Poor Cousin' in Biotech," was the trade magazine's headline.

The "poor cousin" bit has to do with the history of wheat producers ?€" fearing bad publicity -- being especially hesitant in general to use genetically modified seeds. But the evolving water situation, Grant said, will force them to lay their fears to rest.

Grant of course has incentives to issue such dire warnings. But in terms of the potential for a water crisis, those warnings don't sound all that different from what the experts are trying to tell us: the coming years and decades could be defined by water the same way the past few decades have been defined by oil.