Here is some history on Monsanto:
History of Monsanto- a little light reading while we wait....
As I can't talk about just about
anything at the moment, I'm going to post a bit of light reading. If
you don't know the long history of Monsanto, I highly suggest taking
some time to read this. And if you think you do know the history of
Monsanto, I highly suggest taking the time to read this anyway, I know
that I learned several things that I didn't know before.
Know thy enemy.
Documentary Movies About MonsantoDark History of the Evil Monsanto CorporationMonsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide "Roundup", as
well as producing 90% of the world's genetically modified (GMO) seeds.
Over Monsanto's 110-year history (1901-2012), Monsanto Co (MON.N), the
world's largest seed company, has evolved from primarily an industrial
chemical concern into a pure agricultural products company. MON profited
$2 billion dollars in 2009, but their record profits fell to only $1
billion in 2010 after activists exposed Monsanto for doing terribly evil
acts like suing good farmers and feeding uranium to pregnant women.
Below is a timeline of Monsanto's dark history.
Monsanto, best know today for its agricultural biotechnology GMO
products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and
others with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind. From
PCBs to Agent Orange to Roundup, we have many reasons to question the
motives of this evil corporation that claims to be working to reduce
environmental destruction and feed the world with its genetically
engineered GMO food crops. Monsanto has been repeatedly fined and ruled
against for, among many things: mislabeling containers of Roundup,
failing to report health data to EPA, plus chemical spills and improper
chemical deposition.
The name Monsanto has since, for many around the world, come to
symbolize the greed, arrogance, scandal and hardball business practices
of many multinational corporations. A couple of historical factoids not
generally known: Monsanto was heavily involved during WWII in the
creation of the first nuclear bomb for the Manhattan Project via its
facilities in Dayton Ohio and called the Dayton Project headed by
Charlie Thomas, Director of Monsanto's Central Research Department (and
later Monsanto President) and it operated a nuclear facility for the
federal government in Miamisburg, also in Ohio, called the Mound Project
until the 80s.
Monsanto Company History OverviewMonsanto is a US based agricultural and pharmaceutical monopoly,
Monsanto Company is a producer of herbicides, prescription
pharmaceutical drugs, and genetically engineered (GMO) seeds. The global
Monsanto corporation has operated sales offices, manufacturing plants,
and research facilities in more than 100 countries. Monsanto has the
largest share of the global GMO crops market. In 2001 its crops
accounted for 91% of the total area of GMO crops planted worldwide.
Based on 2001 figures Monsanto was the second biggest seed company in
the world, and the third biggest agrochemical company.
Historically Monsanto has been involved with the production of PCBs,
DDT, dioxins and the defoliant / chemical weapon ‘Agent Orange' (sprayed
on American troops and Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War).
Originally a chemical company, Until the late 1990s Monsanto was a much
larger ‘lifesciences' company whose business covered chemicals,
polymers, food additives and pharmaceuticals, as well as agricultural
products.
All of these other chemical business areas have now been demerged or
sold off. Monsanto sold its chemical business in 1997 to build a
presence in biotechnology, developing NON-ORGANIC GMO soybeans and corn
(classified as a pesticide and banned in the EU) to resist the poisonous
affects of its Roundup herbicide. Monsanto's key business areas are now
agrochemicals, seeds and traits (including GMO crops), Monsanto also
produced NutraSweet, a GMO sugar substitute. Monsanto recently sold it's
GMO bovine growth hormones monopoly to Eli Lilly, and sold it's
aspartame business to Pfizer.
Monsanto's business is currently run in two parts: Agricultural
Productivity, and Seeds and Genomics. The Agricultural Productivity
segment includes Roundup herbicide and other agri-chemicals, and the
Animal Agriculture business. The Seeds and Genomics segment consists of
seed companies and related biotechnology traits, and a technology
platform based on plant genomics. In reality of course these two
segments are inseparable, since the agri-chemicals are becoming
increasingly dependent on the seeds segment for sales.
Monsanto's Early 20th-Century OriginsMonsanto traces its roots to John Francisco Queeny, a purchaser for a
wholesale drug house at the turn of the century, who formed the Monsanto
Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri, in order to produce the
artificial sweetener saccharin for Coca-Cola.
John Francis Queeny (August 17, 1859 - March 19, 1933) started work at
age 12 for a wholesale drug company, Tolman and King. He attended school
for 6 years until the Great Chicago Fire forced him, at the age of 12,
to look for full-time employment, which he found with Tolman and King
for $2.50 per week.
In 1891, he moved to St. Louis to work for Meyer Brothers Drug Company.
John was inducted into the Knights of Malta order. His first business, a
sulfur refinery in East St.Louis, was destroyed by fire on its first
day of operation in 1899. The process of refining beet sugar in 1900,
led to Monsanto Corporation's first artificial sweetener, the following
year. Butter substitute, MSG and partially hydrogenated vegetable
shortening were all soon to follow.
John Francis Queeny married Olga Mendez Monsanto with whom he had two
children, one of whom was Edgar Monsanto Queeny, who would later serve
as Chairman. n 1901, John then established his own chemical company to
produce the sweetener, saccharin, which was only available in Germany at
that time. He named the company Monsanto after his wife´s maiden name,
Olga Monsanto Queeny.
Queeny was a member of the Missouri Historical Society and was a
director of the Lafayette-South Side Bank and Trust Company. "He was
also known for his many philanthropic endeavors." [Final Resting Place,
p. 83, The St. Louis Portrait, p. 221]
Knight of Malta John F. Queeny: Founder of Monsanto
According to the Count in Venice, John Francis Queeny (founder of The
Monsanto Company) was a Knight of Malta. Irish-American ROMAN Catholic
Queeny (1859-1933) founded Monsanto in 1901 within the Jesuit stronghold
of St. Lewis - hosting the Black Pope’s Saint Louis University since
1818.
This is the same year J. P. Morgan, Papal Knight of the Order of Saints
Maurice and Lazarus, founded U.S. Steel Corporation and in 1911 would
appoint Knight of Malta John A. Farrell as its president. Interesting:
Queeny, Morgan and Farrell were all wicked, pope-serving, White Gentiles
- not a Jew in the mix!
Robert B. Shapiro was Monsanto’s CEO from 1995 to 2000. The devil’s
Great Conspiracy for world government must always appear to be led by
Jews, never by the Pope of Rome using select, Masonic "Court Jews" as
his underlings!
Once the manufacturer of the now outlawed DDT and Agent Orange during
Francis Cardinal Spellman’s CIA-directed Vietnam War, the company also
developed and now markets bovine growth hormone, further poisoning the
food chain here in America. It is most intriguing that Europe - the
pope’s Revived Holy Roman Empire deceptively called "The European Union"
- refuses to purchase beef produced in the United States!
Upon purchasing G. D. Searle and Company in 1985, Monsanto, via its
NutraSweet Company, is the manufacturer of Aspartame, the notorious
neuro-toxin sold to the public as an artificial sweetener. Aspartame is
the "artificial sweetener" in the soft drink "Diet Pepsi," Pepisico once
employing JFK assassin / FBI liaison to the Warren Commission and
Knight of Malta Cartha D. DeLoach.
Monsanto also has strong ties to The Walt Disney Company, with financial
backing from the Order’s Bank of America founded in Jesuit-ruled San
Francisco by Italian-American ROMAN Catholic Knight of Malta Amadeo
Giannini in 1904. Disney owns ABC Television Network and its Director
Emeritus is Roy Disney (brother of the late Walt Disney) who was
inducted into the Knights of St. Gregory during the same ceremony with
Fox Network owner Rupert Murdoch. ABC and Fox are both controlled by
Rome through brother Knights of the Order of St. Gregory!
World War I: PetrochemicalsWhile prior to World War I America relied heavily on foreign supplies of
chemicals, the increasing likelihood of U.S. intervention meant that
the country would soon need its own domestic producer of chemicals.
Looking back on the significance of the war for Monsanto, Queeny's son
Edgar remarked, "There was no choice other than to improvise, to invent
and to find new ways of doing all the old things. The old dependence on
Europe [Hitler's IG Farben in Nazi Germany] was, almost overnight, a
thing of the past." Among other problems, Monsanto researchers
discovered that pages describing German chemical processes had been
ripped out of library books. Monsanto developed several pharmaceutical
products, including phenol as an antiseptic, in addition to
acetylsalicyclic acid, or aspirin.
Under Edgar Queeny's direction Monsanto, now the Monsanto Chemical
Company, began to substantially expand and enter into an era of
prolonged growth. Acquisitions expanded Monsanto's product line to
include the new field of petrochemical plastics and the manufacture of
phosphorus.
Postwar Expansion & New LeadershipLargely unknown by the public, Monsanto experienced difficulties in
attempting to market consumer goods. However, attempts to refine a
low-quality detergent led to developments in grass fertilizer, an
important consumer product since the postwar housing boom had created a
strong market of homeowners eager to perfect their lawns.
Under Hanley, Monsanto more than doubled its sales and earnings between
1972 and 1983. Toward the end of his tenure, Hanley put into effect a
promise he had made to himself and to Monsanto when he accepted the
position of president, namely, that his successor would be chosen from
Monsanto's ranks. Hanley and his staff chose approximately 20 young
executives as potential company leaders and began preparing them for the
head position at Monsanto. Among them was Richard J. Mahoney. When
Hanley joined Monsanto, Mahoney was a young sales director in
agricultural products. In 1983 Hanley turned the leadership of the
company over to Mahoney. Wall Street immediately approved this decision
with an increase in Monsanto's share prices.
1976, Monsanto announced plans to phase outproduction of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).In 1979 a lawsuit was filed against Monsanto and other manufacturers of
agent orange, a defoliant used during the Vietnam War. Agent orange
contained a highly-toxic chemical known as dioxin, and the suit claimed
that hundreds of veterans had suffered permanent damage because of the
chemical. In 1984 Monsanto and seven other manufacturers agreed to a
$180 million settlement just before the trial began. With the
announcement of a settlement Monsanto's share price, depressed because
of the uncertainty over the outcome of the trial, rose substantially.
Also in 1984, Monsanto lost a $10 million antitrust suit to Spray-Rite, a
former distributor of Monsanto agricultural herbicides. The U.S.
Supreme Court upheld the suit and award, finding that Monsanto had acted
to fix retail prices with other herbicide manufacturers.
In August 1985, Monsanto purchased G. D. Searle, the "NutraSweet" firm.
NutraSweet, an artificial sweetener, had generated $700 million in sales
that year, and Searle could offer Monsanto an experienced marketing and
a sales staff as well as real profit potential - not to mention the
fact that Searle's CEO Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was
well-connected among a cabal of corrupt politicians in Washington DC.
Since the late 1970s the company had sold nearly 60 low-margin
businesses and, with two important agriculture product patents expiring
in 1988, a major new cash source was more than welcome. What Monsanto
didn't count on, however, was the controversy surrounding Searle's
intrauterine birth control device called the Copper-7.
Soon after the acquisition, disclosures about hundreds of lawsuits over
Searle's IUD surfaced and turned Monsanto's takeover into a public
relations disaster. The disclosures, which inevitably led to comparisons
with those about A. H. Robins, the Dalkan Shield manufacturer that
eventually declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, raised questions as to how
carefully Monsanto management had considered the acquisition. In early
1986 Searle discontinued IUD sales in the United States. By 1988
Monsanto's new subsidiary faced an estimated 500 lawsuits against the
Copper-7 IUD. As the parent company, Monsanto was well insulated from
its subsidiary's liabilities by the legal "corporate veil".
Toward the end of the 1980s, Monsanto faced continued challenges from a
variety of sources, including government and public concern over
hazardous wastes, fuel and feedstock costs, and import competition. At
the end of the 99th Congress, then President Ronald Reagan signed a $8.5
billion, five-year cleanup superfund reauthorization act. Built into
the financing was a surcharge on the chemical industry created through
the tax reform bill. Biotechnology regulations were just being
formulated, and Monsanto, which already had types of genetically
engineered bacteria ready for testing, was poised to be an active
participant in the GMO biotech field.
In keeping with its strategy to become a leader in the health field,
Monsanto and the Washington University Medical School entered into a
five-year research contract in 1984. Two-thirds of the research was to
be directed into areas with obviously commercial applications, while
one-third of the research was to be devoted to theoretical work. One
particularly promising discovery involved the application of the bovine
growth factor, MARKETED as a way to greatly increase milk production.
In the burgeoning low-calorie sweetener market, challengers to
NutraSweet were putting pressure on Monsanto. Pfizer Inc., a
pharmaceutical company, was preparing to market its product, called
alitame, which it claimed was far sweeter than NutraSweet and better
suited for baking.
In an interview with Business Week, senior vice-president for research
and development Howard Schneiderman commented, "To maintain our markets -
and not become another steel industry - we must spend on research and
development." Monsanto, which has committed 8% of its operating budget
to research and development, far above the industry average, hoped to
emerge in the 1990s as one of the leaders in the fields of biotechnology
and pharmaceuticals that are only now emerging from their nascent
stage.
By the end of the 1980s, Monsanto had restructured itself and become a
producer of specialty chemicals, with a focus on biotechnology products.
Monsanto enjoyed consecutive record years in 1988 and 1989 - sales were
$8.3 billion and $8.7 billion, respectively. In 1988 the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approved Cytotec, a drug that prevents gastric
ulcers in high-risk cases. Sales of Cytotec in the United States reached
$39 million in 1989.
The Monsanto Chemical Co. unit prospered with products like Saflex, a
type of nylon carpet fiber. The NutraSweet Company held its own in 1989,
contributing $180 million in earnings, with growth in the carbonated
beverage segment (which Monsanto originated from since 1901 seed money
from Coca-Cola to produce carcinogenic Saccharin). Almost 500 new
products containing NutraSweet were introduced in 1989, for a total of
3,000 products.
Monsanto continued to invest heavily in research and development, with
7% of sales allotted for R&D. The investment began to pay off when
the research and development department developed an all-natural fat
substitute called Simplesse. The FDA declared in early 1990 that the
Simplesse product was "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) for use in
frozen desserts. That year, the NutraSweet Company introduced Simple
Pleasures frozen dairy dessert. Monsanto hoped to see Simplesse used
eventually in salad dressings, yogurt, and mayonnaise.
Despite these successes, Monsanto remained frustrated by delays in
obtaining FDA approval for bovine somatotropin (BST), a hormore chemical
MARKETED to increase milk production in cows that causes mastitis (pus
milk). Opponents to BST said it would upset the balance of supply and
demand for milk, but Monsanto countered that BST would provide
high-quality food supplies to consumers worldwide.
The final year of the 1980s also marked Monsanto's listing for the first
time on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Monsanto officials expected the
listing to improve opportunities for licensing and joint venture
agreements.
Monsanto's Early 1990s Transitional PeriodMonsanto had expected to celebrate 1990 as its 5th consecutive year of
increased earnings, but numerous factors - the increased price of OIL
due to the Persian Gulf War, a recession in key industries in the United
States, and droughts in California and Europe — prevented Monsanto from
achieving this goal. Net income was $546 million, a dramatic drop from
the record of $679 the previous year. Nonetheless, subsidiary Searle,
which had experienced considerable public relations scandals and
headaches in the 1980s, had a record financial year in 1990. The
subsidiary had established itself in the global pharmaceutical market
and was beginning to emerge as an industry leader. The Monsanto Chemical
Co., meanwhile, was a $4 billion business that made up the largest
percentage of Monsanto's sales.
Monsanto continued to work at upholding hypocritical "The Monsanto
Pledge", a 1988 declaration to reduce emissions of toxic substances. By
its own estimates, Monsanto devoted $285 million annually to
environmental expenditures. Furthermore, Monsanto and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to a cleanup program at Monsanto's
detergent and phosphate plant in Richmond County, Georgia.
Monsanto restructured during the early 1990s to help cut losses during a
difficult economic time. Net income in 1991 was only $296 million, $250
million less than the previous year. Despite this showing, 1991 was a
good year for some of Monsanto's newest products. Bovine somatotropin
finally gained FDA approval and was sold in Mexico and Brazil, and
Monsanto received the go-ahead to use the fat substitute, Simplesse, in a
full range of food products, including yogurt, cheese and cheese
spreads, and other low-fat spreads. In addition, the herbicide Dimension
was approved in 1991, and scientists at Monsanto controversially tested
genetically engineered (GE or GMO) plants in field trials.
Furthermore, Monsanto expanded internationally, opening an office in
Shanghai and a plant in Beijing, China. Monsanto also hoped to expand in
Thailand, and entered into a joint venture in Japan with Mitsubishi
Chemical Co.
Monsanto's sales in 1992 hit $7.8 million. However, as net income
dropped 130% from 1991 due to several one-time aftertax charges,
Monsanto prepared itself for challenging times. The patent on NutraSweet
brand sweetener expired in 1992, and in preparation for increased
competition, Monsanto launched new products, such as the NutraSweet
Spoonful, which came in tabletop serving jars, like sugar. Monsanto also
devoted ongoing research and development to Sweetener 2000, a
high-intensity product.
In 1992, Monsanto denied that it planned to sell G. D. Searle and Co.,
pointing out that Searle was a profitable subsidiary that launched many
new products. However, to decrease losses, Monsanto did sell Fisher
Controls International Inc., a subsidiary that manufactures process
control equipment. Profits from the sale were used to buy the Ortho
lawn-and-garden business from Chevron Chemical Co.
Monsanto Reinvents Itself in the 1990sMonsanto expected to see growth in its agricultural, chemical, and
biotechnological divisions. In 1993, Monsanto and NTGargiulo joined
forces to produce a (GMO) genetically altered tomato. As the decade
progressed, biotechnology played an increasingly important role,
eventually emerging as the focal point of Monsanto's operations. The
foray into biotechnology, begun in the mid-1980s with a $150-million
investment in a genetic engineering lab in Chesterfield, Missouri, had
been faithfully supported by further investments in the ensuing years.
Monsanto's efforts finally yielded tangible success in 1993, when BST
was approved for commercial sale after a frustratingly slow FDA approval
process. In the coming years, the development of further biotech
products moved to the forefront of Monsanto's activities, ushering in a
period of profound change. Fittingly, the sweeping, strategic
alterations to Monsanto's focus were preceded by a change in leadership,
making the last decade of the 20th century one of the most dynamic eras
in Monsanto's history.
Toward the end of 1994, Mahoney announced his retirement, effective the
following year in March 1995. As part of the same announcement, Mahoney
revealed that Robert B. Shapiro, Monsanto's president and chief
operating officer, would be elected by Monsanto's board of directors as
his successor. Shapiro, who had joined Searle in 1979 before being named
executive vice-president of Monsanto in 1990, did not waver from
exerting his influence over the company he now found himself presiding
over. At the time of his promotion, Shapiro inherited a company that
ranked as the largest domestic ACRYLIC manufacturer in the world,
generating $3 billion of its $7.9 billion in total revenues from
chemical-related sales. This dominant side of Monsanto's business,
representing the foundation upon which it had been built, was eliminated
under Shapiro's stewardship, replaced by a resolute commitment to
biotech.
Between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, Monsanto had spent
approximately $1 billion on developing its biotech business. Although
biotech was regarded as a commercially unproven market by some industry
analysts, Shapiro pressed forward with the research and development of
biotech products, and by the beginning of 1996 he was ready to launch
Monsanto's first biotech product line. Monsanto began marketing
herbicide-tolerant GMO soybeans, genetically engineered to resist
Monsanto's PATENTED Roundup herbicide, and insect-resistant GMO BT
cotton, beginning with 2,000,000 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 (yet
WORSE results than traditional and organic crops). News of the
encouraging results prompted Shapiro to make a startling announcement in
October 1996, when he revealed that Monsanto was considering divesting
its chemical business as part of a major reorganization into a
life-sciences company.
By the end of 1996, when Shapiro announced he would spin-off the
chemical operations as a separate company, Monsanto faced a future
without its core business, a $3 billion contributor to Monsanto's annual
revenue volume. Without the chemical operations, Monsanto would be
reduced to an approximately $5-billion company deriving half its sales
from agricultural products and the rest from pharmaceuticals and food
ingredients, but Shapiro did not intend to leave it as such. He foresaw
an aggressive push into biotech products, a move that industry pundits
generally perceived as astute. "It would be a gamble if they didn't do
it," commented one analyst in reference to the proposed divestiture.
"Monsanto is trying to transform itself into a high-growth agricultural
and life sciences company. Low-growth cyclical chemical operations do
not fit that bill." Spurring Shapiro toward this sweeping reinvention of
Monsanto were enticing forecasts for the market growth of plant biotech
products. A $450 million business in 1995, the market for plant biotech
products was expected to reach $2 billion by 2000 and $6 billion by
2005. Shapiro wanted to dominate this fast-growing market as it matured
by shaping Monsanto into what he described as the main provider of
"Agricultural Biotechnology".
As preparations were underway for the spin-off of Monsanto's chemical
operations into a new, publicly owned company named Solutia Inc.,
Shapiro was busy filling the void created by the departure of Monsanto's
core business. A flurry of acquisitions completed between 1995-1997
greatly increased Monsanto's presence in life sciences, quickly
compensating for the revenue lost from the spin-off of Solutia. Among
the largest acquisitions were Calgene, Inc., a leader in plant biotech,
which was acquired in a two-part transaction in 1995 and 1997, and a 40%
interest in Dekalb Genetics Corp., the second-largest seed-corn company
in the United States. In 1998, Monsanto acquired the rest of DeKalb,
paying $2.3 billion for the Illinois-based company.
By the end of the 1990s, Monsanto bore only partial resemblance to the
Monsanto company that entered the decade. The acquisition campaign that
added dozens of biotechnology companies to its portfolio had created a
new, dominant force in the promising life sciences field, placing
Monsanto in a position to reap massive rewards in the years ahead. For
example, a rootworm-resistant strain under development had the potential
to save $1 billion worth of damages to corn crops per year. Monsanto's
pharmaceutical business also faced a promising future, highlighted by
the introduction of a new arthritis medication named Celebrex in 1999.
During its first year, Celebrex registered a record number of
prescriptions. As Monsanto entered the 21st century, however, there were
two uncertainties that loomed as potentially serious obstacles blocking
its future success. The acquisition campaign of the mid- and late-1990s
had greatly increased Monsanto's debt, forcing Monsanto to desperately
search for cash. Secondly, there was growing opposition to genetically
altered crops at the decade's conclusion, prompting the United Kingdom
to ban the yields from GMO crops for a year. A great part of Monsanto's
future success depended on the resolution of these two issues.
Monsanto's Financial History& Corporate InstabilityMonsanto had a difficult time during 2002. Its share price had been
steadily falling and, in spite of an upturn in sales in the fourth
quarter, total sales for 2002 were only $4,673m, compared to $5,462m for
2001. The primary causes, according to the company, were lower volumes
of RoundUp sales in the U.S. due to drought, lower prices for RoundUp
due to it going off-patent and facing increased competition from
competitors, and lower sales of RoundUp and seeds in Latin America.
Events in Argentina also affected the company in other ways: Monsanto's
Argentine unit lost $154 million in the 2002 fiscal year, due to the
collapse of the Argentine economy and a deepening recession which forced
the government to default on most of its public debt, and devalue the
peso in January 2002. The government also converted what was a dollar
economy into a peso economy and, as a result, Monsanto received devalued
pesos for products it had sold in dollars, slashing its sales income.
In December 2002, CEO Hendrik Verfaillie resigned after he and the board
agreed that his performance had been disappointing and the company had
faced extensive criticism for failing to deal more honestly and
effectively with its difficulties. 'This is a company that has been
optimistic on the borderline of lying,' said Sergey Vasnetsov, senior
analyst with Lehman Brothers in New York. 'Monsanto has been feeding us
these fantasies for two years, and when we saw they weren't real,' its
stock price fell.
In 2009, Monsanto profited about $2 billion. After much controversy...
in 2010, Monsanto profits dove 50% to about $1 billion. GMO crops are
massively failing, some even seedless at harvest time. Subsidized crops
are LOSING MONEY annually. The USDA is calling it a "yield-drag" but we
all know the GMOs do NOT outperform organic crops... unless you're an
accountant for Monsanto.
No matter what weaknesses Monsanto has, it is worth bearing in mind the
following: Global sales of Roundup herbicide exceed those of the next 6
leading herbicides combined. Monsanto holds the #1 or #2 position in key
corn and soybean markets in North America, Latin America, and Asia.
Monsanto also holds a leading position in the European wheat market.
Monsanto is the world leader in biotechnology crops. Seeds with Monsanto
traits accounted for more than 90% of the acres planted worldwide with
herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant traits in 2001.
click here to see Monsanto's History TIMELINE 
