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MonsantoLogo.png Monsanto logo Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON (http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=MON)) is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. It is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as its flagship product, Roundup. It is also by far the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed, holding 70%-100% market share for various crops. Agracetus, owned by Monsanto, produces all the world's Roundup Ready soybean seed for the commercial market. It has over 15,000 employees worldwide, and an annual revenue of $5.4 billion US reported for August, 2004. Its products and aggressive legal and lobby practices have made Monsanto a primary target of the anti-globalization movement and environmental activists. While other chemical and biotech multinationals face similar criticisms, Monsanto is easily the most reviled. It is negatively referred to by many of its most outspoken critics as Monsatan.
HistoryMonsanto was founded in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1901, by John Francis Queeny, a 30-year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry. He funded the start-up with his own money and capital from a soft drink distributor, and gave the company his wife's maiden name. Monsanto first product was the artificial sweetener, saccharin, which it sold to The Coca-Cola Company. It also introduced caffeine and vanillin to Coca-Cola, and became one that company's main suppliers. In the 1920s, Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals like sulfuric acid. In the 1940s, it became a leading manufacturer of plastics, including polystyrene, and synthetic fibers. Since then, it has consistently been one of the top 10 US chemical companies. Other major products have included Agent Orange, aspartame (NutraSweet), Bovine somatotropin (bovine growth hormone), and PCBs. Over the last decade, Monsanto has made a transition from chemical giant to biotech giant. Through a process of mergers and spinoffs, a "new" Monsanto emerged, claiming to be a different company from the original, with no connection to its chemical past. However, the current board of directors is almost entirely from the "old" Monsanto. In 2001, retired Monsanto chemist William S. Knowles was named a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation which was carried out at Monsanto beginning in the 1960's until his 1986 retirement. Legal IssuesMonsanto is notable for its involvement in high profile lawsuits, as both plaintiff and defendant. In 1917, the US government filed suit against Monsanto over the safety of its original product, saccharin. Monsanto eventually won, after several years in court. It was sued by veterans for the side effects of its Agent Orange defoliant, used by the US military in the Vietnam war. More recently, it lost a series of court decisions resulting in US$700 million in damages being awarded to thousands of residents of an Alabama town that had been polluted over a period of years by Monsanto's PCB byproducts. On October 13th, 2004, the European plant variety rights on a conventionally-bred strain of soft-milling wheat owned by French company RAGT were withdrawn at RAGT's request. The strain was developed by Unilever and purchased by Monsanto in 1998; RAGT purchased the strain from Monsanto in May 2004 along with Monsanto's European wheat and barley business. It is a cross between a European wheat strain and a conventional Indian variety Nap Hal. Greenpeace considers RAGT's withdrawal to represent a victory by Greenpeace over Monsanto and claim that they played a central role by proving that the wheat was not genetically modified (the application did not claim the strain was genetically modified) and that somehow the variety in question was not the cross-bred strain described in the application but was really the traditional strain Nap Hal bred by Indian farmers, despite the contrary text of the application. RAGT says it withdrew its plant variety rights for commercial reasons and Greenpeace played no role in its decision. Also in 2004, the world's largest agrichemical company, Switzerland's Syngenta, launched a US lawsuit charging Monsanto with using coercive tactics to monopolize markets. Monsanto also uses the courts aggressively. It has sued hundreds of US farmers for patent infringement in connection with its GE seed. In a high profile case in Canada, which it won at the Supreme Court level, it sued an independent farmer, Percy Schmeiser, for patent infringement for growing genetically modified Roundup resistant canola in 1998. Mr. Schmeiser maintained that this was accidental. He testified that in the previous year, 1997, he had suspected contamination by genetically modified Roundup resistant canola along the roadside in one of his fields and hence had sprayed along the field edge with Roundup, whereupon he found that about 60% of the canola survived. The farm hand performing the harvest saved only seed from this contaminated roadside swathe for replanting in the next year, 1998, and presumably this seed was genetically modified Roundup resistant seed. The court found that Mr. Schmeiser and his farming company (damages were assessed only against the company as Mr. Schmeiser was found to be acting in his capacity as director), "knew or ought to have known" the nature of the seed which was planted in 1998, and that by planting, growing and harvesting it, there was infringement of Monsanto's patent on canola cells genetically modified for Roundup resistance. This finding was upheld at the appellate court level. It had been established in Canada in the "Harvard mouse case" that genetically modified higher organisms such as plants are not patentable in Canada as they do not fall into any of the categories of patentable inventions enumerated in the Patent Act. As Monsanto's patent covered only the genetically modified plant cells but not the genetically modified plants themselves, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the question of whether growing genetically modified plants constitutes "use" of the invention of genetically modified plant cells. It ruled that it does. The case drew worldwide attention. A widespread misunderstanding of the case is that at issue was the question of accidental contamination, and that a victory for Monsanto would place farmers in jeopardy for contamination of their fields which was beyond their control. In fact, the courts at all three levels noted that the case of accidental contamination beyond the farmer's control was not under consideration but rather that Mr. Schmeiser's action of having identified, isolated and saved the Roundup resistant seed placed the case in a different category. The appellate court also discussed a possible intermediate scenario, in which a farmer is aware of contamination of his crop by genetically modified seed, but tolerates its presence and takes no action to increase its abundance in his crop. The court held that whether such a case would constitute patent infringement remains an open question but that it was a question that did not need to be decided in the Schmeiser case. PoliticsMonsanto also has strong ties to the core players in the US administration of George W. Bush, including John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Ann Veneman, Tommy Thompson, and Clarence Thomas, a former attorney for Monsanto who was appointed to the Supreme Court by George H. W. Bush. External links
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