Monsanto: Winning the Ground War

[nosmokes]

Here's the overwhelmingly propagandistic article on Monsanto and AgBiotech in Businessweek but I'm linking to it through GM watch so I can include their comments. It'll be interesting to see hat sort of storm this kicks up outside of Wall Street.
--###--

original-gmwatch<businessweek

GM Watch COMMENT:


Here's the world according to Monsanto, but read in between all the hubris and you discover that Monsanto's abandoned GM 'food' crops, just as it has had to beat a tactical retreat - or remains almost completely excluded - from many parts of the globe. And it's betting its shirt entirely on its animal feed/food processing/agrofuel crops.

That strategy is working fine financially for the moment, particularly given the ethanol boom. But how sustainable is an agrofuel boom that threatens both food sovereignty and environmental devastation? And where does Monsanto go when even in its American heartland, its GM product - rBGH - is already in serious trouble, while a whole series of US presidential candidates are starting to commit to GM food labelling?

EXTRACTS: Managers at the company display a near-religious conviction about the GMO cause... But if the fears of GMO opponents ever do come true, Monsanto will take a far bigger fall than any of its more diversified rivals. Today, Monsanto gets 60% of its revenue from biotech seeds, in contrast to about 20% at Syngenta, for example, and less than 10% at diverse chemicals company Dow (DOW). The company's confident leaders are essentially making an enormous unhedged bet on their technology.

While Monsanto executives don't believe they are gambling, there are still plenty of doubters. In August, Kroger (KR) became the latest U.S. grocery chain to stop selling milk with a GMO bovine growth hormone that increases production, which Monsanto first started selling in 1994. All summer, activists in France trampled fields of biotech crops. Hostility toward GMO foods continues to be widespread in Africa and parts of Asia and Western Europe. This type of persistent opposition is one reason why the investment research firm Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, which gives companies a type of credit rating based on their strategic risk profile, assigns Monsanto a 'CCC' grade-its lowest possible mark. 'Monsanto is basically saying that its products are very well regulated and therefore safe,' says Heather Langsner, director of research for Innovest. 'It's a lot more murky than that.'

NOTE: Join Business Week's debate about GMO-crop safety http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/12/gmo_crops_a_gro.html

---

Monsanto: Winning the Ground War
How the company turned the tide in the battle over genetically modified crops
by Brian Hindo Business Week, December 6 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_51/b4063034300400.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories

When Hugh Grant took the top job at Monsanto (MON) in May, 2003, the company's nickname in some quarters was 'Mutanto.' A growing chorus of critics warned that Monsanto's genetically modified plant seeds would wipe out the monarch butterfly, give people virulent new allergies, and reduce the planet's agricultural diversity. Author Jeremy Rifkin predicted that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would turn out to be 'the single greatest failure in the history of capitalism.' Paul McCartney urged the world to 'say no to GMO.' Prince Charles wrote an editorial arguing that genetic engineering takes 'mankind into realms that belong to God and to God alone.'

During the 12 months preceding Grant's elevation, Monsanto's stock price fell nearly 50% to $8 a share. In 2002, the prior fiscal year, the company lost $1.7 billion. 'We were pretty financially fragile,' recalls Grant, 49, who speaks with the lilt of his native Scotland.

Fewer than five years later, Monsanto is thriving. The St. Louis company's net income leaped 44% last year, to $993 million, on $8.5 billion in revenue. Monsanto shares, which closed at $104.81 on Dec. 5, have risen more than 1,000% during Grant's tenure. At 58.6, the company's price-to-earnings ratio is about two points higher than Google's (GOOG). These numbers reflect a broader story: that Monsanto has quietly turned the tide in the war over genetically modified foods.

While a vocal band of opponents is still protesting biotech crops, a growing multitude of farmers around the world is planting them. The reason is no mystery: Monsanto seeds contain genes that kill bugs and tolerate weed-killing pesticides. So they are much easier and cheaper to grow than traditional seeds. More than half the crops grown in the U.S., including nearly all the soybeans and 70% of the corn, are genetically modified. Just five years ago, China, India, and Brazil planted virtually no genetically engineered crops. Now Brazil can barely build roads fast enough to get all of its biotech soybeans from the fertile interior Mato Grosso state out to ports. Farmers in China and India, meanwhile, planted more than 17 million acres of biotech crops last year. These three countries are now three of the six largest GMO-planting nations in the world, as measured by area planted. At a time when organic food is more popular than ever, about 7% of the world's entire farmland acreage is now planted with genetically modified crops—the ultimate anti-organic food. 'When you're more than 1 billion acres planted,' says Grant, 'I think the conversation moves from what if' to what is.''

~snip~
.
.
.
complete article here

[flashl]

1. Isnt the GMO genie is out of the bottle?

"Indian farmers are choosing death after finding themselves caught in a loop of crop failure and debt rooted in genetically modified and patented agriculture."

In Iraq, order 81 was written to promote the patenting of seeds and the sale of GMOs.

[nosmokes]

2. Yes, and even though contamination will continue from what was planted,

there is absolutely no need to continue compounding the felonious stupidity and short-sightedness by continuing to plant more.

[Cha]

3. This makes me sick..

It isn't bad enough that the bushites have bombed Iraq to oblivion and spread depleted Uranium all over the country but they have to spread their virus gmo over our planet.

I try hard to stay positive but do we even have a chance in hell?

[Cha]

4. nosmokes, OT, but have you

seen this?

http://www.11thhouraction.com/

[nosmokes]

5. No, I haven't. Thanks!

[Cha]

6. Welcome! My friend

just sent it to me via email..and we have The 11th Hour "saved" on netflix.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_11th_Hour/70075048?trkid=189530&strkid=619193576_0_0

[humus]

7. done neatly

what is missing on the proactive anti GMo side of the argument is organic farmers
i.e
the more there are the less there will be desecration of the
the land by GM Organisms.

To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.

- Wendell Berry

Biotechnology, variety patenting, and other agribusiness innovations
are intended not to help farmers or consumers but to extend and
prolong corporate control of the food economy; they will increase the
cost of food, both economically and ecologically.
Wendell Berry

Nothing is more pleasing or heartening than a plate of nourishing,
tasty, beautiful food artfully and lovingly prepared. Anything less
is unhealthy, as well as a desecration.
Wendell Berry

The secret of great wealth with no obvious source
is some forgotten crime,
forgotten because it was done neatly.
-- Balzac