monsanto

Monsanto Officer Believes It Is 'on the Verge of a Technology Explosion”

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:05:00 -0500

by Alexandra Frean

Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed maker, is pinning its hopes on a string of “game-changing” products as its long-time moneyspinner, Roundup weed killer, comes under sustained attack from cheaper generic versions.

Hugh Grant, the US company’s Scottish chairman and chief executive, said this week that the new products should help Monsanto to fulfil its promise to double 2007’s gross profit to $7.5 billion (£4.7 billion) by 2012, as it shifts its focus away from herbicides to its more profitable biotech seeds business.

Sick of Corporate Control Over Your Food?

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:28:45 -0500

by Jill Richardson

Have you ever played Monopoly? You know how it goes. It’s pretty fun for a while, until one player puts hotels and Boardwalk and Park Place and then amasses crazy amounts of money while the other play goes broke. Often in our house this would end with one player walking away from the game (or worse, turning the game board upside down in anger). This is no coincidence.

Monsanto Stomps Down Budding Seed Competitors

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:12:12 -0500

by Christopher Leonard

ST. LOUIS - Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Monsanto and Pioneer Duke It Out Over Biotech Corn, Farmers Take the Hit

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:59:58 -0400

by Dennis Keeney

There is an old African saying "Whether elephants make love or war, the grass suffers." The two elephants in the agricultural seed business are now making real war, although they have been wary of each other for years. Monsanto, a relatively recent entry into the business, has become the "dominant male" in the battle after moving to acquire a large number of formerly independent seed companies. Pioneer, content for years to be the premiere corn breeder in the world, has

More Concern Over Monsanto's Penchant for Chemical Spraying

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:22:06 -0400

by Craig Gilbert

Sure Catch Baits owner, Lisa Pilgrim, was in Toronto for a routine meeting with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) just over a year ago as a member of a baitfish advisory committee. There had been many such meetings, but this time she brought a prop.

"It was an MNR sign, a proper notice, that said ‘don't eat the blueberries,'" Pilgrim said.

The reason? The blueberries were in an area that had received herbicidal spray, applied from a helicopter, and were therefore potentially unsafe to consume.

Local Seeds vs. Big Guns

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:51:21 -0400

by Sarah Simpson

It was April 18 -- a warm and sunny day, weather completely unlike we had seen for some time.

I must confess, I didn't have a chance to buy those not-so-fancy farming overalls like I had hoped. But, I did manage to plant my grains -- inch by inch, (or thereabouts) crooked row by crooked row.

Red Fife, a hard wheat variety, emmer and hulless oats made up my crop -- and by crop I mean whatever I could jam into my 200-square foot plot, which, incidentally, feels a whole lot bigger when you have to pull the weeds out.

Seeds Of Truth

Tue, 12 May 2009 10:28:56 -0400

by Sheila Samples

I have learned over the past decade if I want to know what's really going on in the United States, I have to cruise through the foreign media to see what's creating a furor or causing a stink. So, while searching for the status of Spain's on-again, off-again criminal proceedings against six Bush Administration war criminals, this headline in Der Spiegel caught my eye -- "Frankenfood Ban is Neither Populism nor Panic-Mongering."