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Monsanto to Cut 2,600 Jobs as GMO Seed Sales Fall

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  • Monsanto to Cut 2,600 Jobs as GMO Seed Sales Fall

    Monsanto to Cut 2,600 Jobs as GMO Seed Sales Fall
    by Anthony Gucciardi
    Posted on October 8, 2015


    And as Americans (and Europe) reject GMOs.

    It’s not looking too good for everyone’s favorite GMO seed giant. With sales figures crashing down, Monsanto has announced a plan to cut 2,600 jobs in an effort to cut costs — about 11.6% of the workforce.

    And this isn’t the first time Monsanto has experienced a serious slump in sales. Back in February of this year, I told you about the ‘beginning of the serious decline’ for both Monsanto and McDonald’s. It’s a notion that would be considered absolutely absurd not too long ago, really. McDonald’s and Monsanto were the two ‘juggernauts’ that everyone loved to hate, but felt powerless against.

    They were ‘too big to fail,’ we thought. And perhaps the corporate executives thought so, too. The truth is, however, that both of these companies had decades to actually improve their practices and regain public opinion. Why didn’t McDonald’s stop using cheap fillers and toxic compounds in favor of something that’s at least somewhat higher quality? Monsanto could have actually done something about the numerous reports by mainstream media organizations that detailed Indian farmer suicides as a result of the company’s terrible farming contracts.

    Better yet, maybe Monsanto’s deep ties with the US government shouldn’t have threatened ‘trade wars’ with nations that would dare to oppose their GMOs. It’s all in The Guardian report about the 2007 WikiLeaks revelations surrounding Monsanto. The U.S. State Department was apparently even paying for Monsanto’s marketing material overseas.

    But back to Monsanto shedding cash. Here’s what Reuters had to report: (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/08/us-monsanto-results-idUSKCN0S11C120151008)

    “Monsanto Co, one of the world’s largest seed and agrichemical companies, said on Wednesday that it was slashing 2,600 jobs and restructuring operations to cut costs in a slumping commodity market.

    Sales of corn seeds and traits, Monsanto’s key products, fell 5 percent to $598 million in the quarter. And sales at the company’s agricultural productivity unit, which includes Roundup herbicide, dropped 12 percent to $1.1 billion.”

    Unless Monsanto magically decides to turn around and clean up its act, or manages to buy up Syngenta and enter an entire new world of genetic modification, I expect to see similar headlines in the future.

  • #2
    Monsanto’s Roundup Sales Plummeting, Driving Overall 12% Sales Decrease in Just 3 Months
    by Christina Sarich
    Posted on October 12, 2015


    While GM corn seed sales fall as well

    Is this the beginning of the end for Monsanto? After reporting that the company is letting go of thousands of their workforce, the company is projecting not only weak sales of their GM corn, but also of one of their biggest, and now most controversial sellers – Roundup.

    According to Reuters:

    “Sales of corn seeds and traits, Monsanto’s key products, fell 5 percent to $598 million in the quarter. And sales at the company’s agricultural productivity unit, which includes Roundup herbicide, dropped 12 percent to $1.1 billion.”

    Monsanto relies on its chemical herbicide sales for its shareholders, but since the World Health Organization’s IARC, and the state of California have announced that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic, bans are cropping up all over the world. Even without formal bans, Swiss and German retail outlets are ditching Roundup due to customer concerns about the chemicals and their health.

    The French minister has also asked retailers to stop selling Roundup. Lowe’s and Home Depot as well as other retailers in Europe have stopped selling Roundup, yet it is still sold in the US. Monsanto obviously can’t rely on American sales alone of its formerly best-selling chemical concoction to stay financially solvent.

    Even when Monsanto was claiming that it was reducing the use of various herbicides to grow its GM seeds a few years back, Roundup sales were skyrocketing – but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.

    Monsanto enjoyed some of its highest stock prices in 2008, but 2015 and 2016 aren’t looking as hot for Monsanto. Though I admit that Monsanto is still making TONS of money even with sales drops, a 12 percent decrease in sales in less than a quarter is terrible news for most companies. Monsanto will feel this pain as it becomes better known that its products are hazardous to the environment, the pollinators, our pets, and us. Maybe we can watch the biotech machine sputter out just as quickly as it rose to fame.

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