Mansanto,+How+Much+is+Enough?

Patrick M. Coady

New York Times Article: //After Growth, Fortunes Turn for Monsanto//

Monsanto, the acclaimed "company of the year," (Forbes Magazine) is starting to see a turn of events in their sales and production. The conglomerate seems to be losing stride as they were rumored to have "the worst stock of 2010" by some sources. The agricultural powerhouse has been facing many recent setbacks, most of which question Monsanto's questionable business practices and strategies - are they compromising affordable quality with top of the line genetically injected super-plants that come at a much steeper cost to the farmers and consumers alike? It may seem so, with shares down 42% in the ten months preceeding this article (Oct. 4, 2010), at $47.77 a piece, far from the whopping $140/share they were worth in 2008, just two years prior. Furthermore, Monsanto's newest product, SmartStax corn, containing eight genetically altered genes, has evidenced no sizable gains in profit over its previously released corn seed (which only contained three altered genes). Their staple product, Roundup has also been recently devastated by the introduction of hundreds of knock-off brand-name competitors in China. And in addition, they are losing a hold on the roundup-ready food market that they created and controlled for so long because of the overexposure (of Roundup) and the evolution of the weeds they aim to kill. Monsanto is once again on the table, being investigated for violations of Antitrust laws, all while losing revenue, and customers in the farming community who refuse to endorse their products any longer. However, in light of all of this, Monsanto does seem to be turning around its crooked business strategies, offering significant price reductions (cut from $24 to $8/acre) and higher farmer to corporation profit splits. They have offered options to those buying their products which include; choosing what genetically altered plant best suits their needs - one that has all the necessary upgrades, but no extra bells and or whistles - not paying for the introduction of unneeded and high-cost aftermarket genes that may not really do anything for the growth and development of the plant in question. Being the technological leader in the field has proved itself as maybe some sort of vice for Monsanto, because they couldn't seem to keep everything in reach, rather they greedily capitalized of the advantages manifest.

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Good precis of this article which does build your knowledge of the company, but it doesn't have too much crisp focus on the efforts Monsanto makes to influence the U.S. Congress. Make sure you use APA citation, which for this article would look like this:

Author, I. (2010, October 5). After growth, fortunes turn for Monsanto. New York Times. Available: URL

I suggest getting the big picture about the company and it's PR game by looking at Michael Specter's article in the New Yorker from 2000: "The Pharmageddon Riddle." Also, you may do better in your search with keywords including "genetic engineering" and "public relations" and "activism." With these keywords, I found a really interesting study of an anti-Monsanto group in New Zealand that opposes their products. Clearly these people see themselves as needing to take action in order to counter the propaganda they are getting. Fascinating stuff!

Weaver, K. (2010). Carnivalesque activism as a public relations genre: A case study of the New Zealand group Mothers Against Genetic Engineering. Public Relations Review 36(1), 35- 41.

GRADE C+