Chemical warfare. (Focus on Inputs challenges Monsanto Ltd.'s market share)

CHEMICAL WARFARE

SEATED AMID THE QUIET hum of a motel restaurant, Ken Goudy expounds at length on prairie farming and the state of his dream--mindful perhaps that both subjects can use all the positive thinking he can muster. As for farming, can anything jolt the prairie agricultural economy out of its stupor? As for his dream, can a loose association of armers really hope to compete in a business dominated by some of the largest multinational corporations in the world? The latter is a question he has fielded many times before. The lantern-jawed, 45-year-old Melfort businessman tightens his grip on a coffee cup by now all but empty. His eyes narrow, his voice is suddenly very soft. "I wouldn't waste my time doing it if I wasn't 100 per cent sure."

Goudy has faced skepticism many times during his eight-year quest to bring cut-rate herbicides to prairie grain producers. Doubtless he will have to contend with a great deal more as Focus on Inputs, the 660-member association he heads, seeks financing to manufacture a generic version of the herbicide Roundup. After all, the group will have to kick aside billion-dollar Monsanto Ltd., Roundup's manufacturer, to do it. To date, Goudy and the group have managed to climb only the first rung of the …