monsanto

MONSANTO
Monsanto Company is a leading global supplier of herbicides and seeds. It makes the leading brand of herbicide, which it markets under the Roundup brand. It also leads the world market for genetically modified (GM) seed and produces GM varieties for corn, soybeans, and cotton. Furthermore, Monsanto has developed genetically engineered seeds for crops to resist Roundup.
The company claims that ‘Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company. We deliver agricultural products that support farmers all around the world.’ However, there are growing opposition to genetically altered crops and moral issues about this company and its product all around the world……( ? the summary of issues we are going to discuss?) (THE LAST PART-CONTROVERSY)
COMPANY HISTORY http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/Pages/monsanto-history.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
Monsanto was founded in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1901. The company’s first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. In 1997, the original Monsanto Company spun off its chemical business and renamed itself Pharmacia Corporation following a merger with Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. in 2000. The old Monsanto’s agriculture business became the new Monsanto Company.
Monsanto developed several strategic products, including phenol as an antiseptic, in addition to acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin. At the same time, acquisitions expanded Monsanto’s product line to include the new field of plastics and the manufacture of phosphorus. The company continued to grow. And Monsanto began manufacturing DDT in 1944. But due to DDT’s toxicity, its use in United Stats was banned in 1972. The Agricultural Division of Monsanto is established in 1960 and a cell biology research program is established in the Agricultural Division in 1975. And in 1976, Roundup herbicide is commercialized in the United States.
By the end of the 1980s, Monsanto had restructured itself and become a producer of specialty chemicals, with a focus on biotechnology products. Monsanto scientists became the first to genetically modify a plant cell in 1982. And the original Monsanto conducts the first U.S. field trials of plants with biotechnology traits in 1987.
Monsanto enjoyed consecutive record years in 1988 and 1989: sales were $8.3 billion and $8.7 billion, respectively. At the same time, Monsanto continued to work at upholding ‘ The Monsanto Pledge,” a 1988 declaration to reduce emissions of toxic substances. By its own estimates, the company devoted $285 million annually to environmental expenditures Furthermore, Monsanto and the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to a cleanup program at the company’s detergent and phosphate plant in Richmond County, Georgia.
The company restructured during the early 1990s to help cut losses during a difficult economic time. In addition, the herbicide Dimension was approved in 1991, and scientists at Monsanto tested genetically improved plants in field trials. Monsanto’s sales in 1992 hit $7.8 million.
Monsanto expected to see growth in ints agricultural, chemical, and biotechnological divisions. In 1993, Monsanto and NTGargiulo joined forces to produce a genetically altered tomato. Between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, Monsanto had spent approximately $1 billion on developing its biotech business. From 1996 to 1998, Roundup Ready Soybeans, Roundup Ready canola, Roundup Ready cotton and Roundup Ready Corn are introduced.
By the beginning of 1996 Monsanto was ready to launch the company’s first biotech product line. Monsanto began marketing herbicide-tolerant soybeans, genetically engineered to resist Roundup, and insect-resistant cotton, beginning with two million acres of both crops. By the fall of 1996, there were early indications that the first harvests of genetically engineered crops were performing better than expected.
A flurry of acquisitions completed greatly made Monsanto the world’s largest conventional seed company at the time. Monsanto, strengthened by its several acquisitions, becomes the first agriculture company to introduce a second-generation trait product when it introduces Roundup Ready Corn 2 in 2001. And the market for plant biotech products was expected to reach $2 bilion by 2000 and $6 billion by 2005.
The 2005 crop season marked the tenth season that biotech crops were planted throughout the world. The 2005 season also marked the year in which the billionth acre was planted with biotech crops and the year in which the billionth acre harvested. Monsanto was shaped into the main provider of ‘agricultural biotechnology.’
In 2006, Roundup Ready® Corn 2 technology is planted on more than 32 million acres – or about 40 percent of U.S. corn acres – during the 2006 crop season. And the company’s genetically modified seeds were by this time sown on nearly 200 million acres, principally in the United States and Argentina. They had gain acceptance in Canada and China, but were a subject of considerable controversy in Europe.
In 2010, Forbes magazine named Monsanto company of the year for 2009. Also in 2010, Swiss research firm Covalence released its annual ranking of the overall ethical performance of 581 multinational corporations. Monsanto company was ranked the worst.
WHAT IS GMO? (WIKIPEDIA)
A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. Organisms that have been genetically modified include micro-organisms such as bacteria and yeast, insects, plants, fish, and mammals. GMOs are the source of genetically modified foods, and are also widely used in scientific research and to produce goods other than food. The term GMO is very close to the technical legal term, 'living modified organism' defined in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which regulates international trade in living GMOs (specifically, "any living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology").
WHAT IS GMO FOOD? (WIKIPEDIA) Genetically modified foods are foods produced from organisms that have had specific changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering. These techniques have allowed for the introduction of new crop traits as well as a far greater control over a food’s genetic structure than previously afforded by methods such as selective breeding and mutation breeding.
WHAT ARE GMO CROPS? (WIKIPEDIA)
Genetically modified crops are plants, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering techniques. In most cases the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species. Examples include resistance to certain pests, diseases, or environmental conditions, or resistance to chemical treatments.
CONTROVERSY (revise after issues reviewed) There are controversies around GMOs on several levels, including whether making them is ethical, whether food produced with them is safe, whether such food should be labeled and if so how, whether agricultural biotech is needed to address world hunger now or in the future, and more specifically to GM crops—intellectual property and market dynamics; environmental effects of GM crops; and GM crops' role in industrial agricultural more generally.
Monsanto's application of this model to agriculture, along with a growing movement to create a global, uniform system of plant breeders' rights in the 1980s, came into direct conflict with customary practices of farmers to save, reuse, share and develop plant varieties. Its seed patenting model has also been criticized as biopiracy and a threat to biodiversity. Monsanto's role in these changes in agriculture (which include its litigation and its seed commercialization practices), its current and former biotechnology products, its lobbying of government agencies, and its history as a chemical company have made Monsanto controversial.
Monsanto's business model requires inherently unsustainable practices for farmers: constantly buying new seed every year. How can there be such a thing as 'sustainable agriculture' if the seeds do not reproduce, require expensive pesticides, and poison the soil on which famers depend? What is sustainable about the 200,000 farmer suicides in India on this account? (SHOULD BE REVISED)
Also there is no scientific consensus on the safety of genetically modified foods and crops, according to a statement released today by an international group of more than 90 scientists, academics and physicians. (RELATIONSHIP TO FDA?)
And the company is also fighting attempts to label products as containing genetically modified ingredients. Now it is not required to put GMO label on the products, so how those people that are unwilling to consume GM food avoid buying it? And why it has to be hidden from the public? Why government/FDA allow it?

GOVERNMENT/FDA?