Monsanto to Cut 2,600 Jobs as GMO Seed Sales Fall
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:
“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.
 | Natural Society staff contribution |
At the next presidential elections concerned americans(all three of you) should get a candidate running to confront this GMO problem. Perhaps Berney would pick up the gauntlet for safe natural foods and seeds over the GMO poison Monsanto,Bayer , Cieba Giegy,and Dow chemical are pushing, you’d have to ask him to do so in a petition.
We are winning this war. The chemical age of agriculture was based on lies and they can not hide in the shadows anymore so they will lose. Much to the benefit of us all.
Dr. Richard L.Stump co host of the Sulfur Hour plus One on American Voice Radio Network.com says buy nothing in a box, then labeling will not be necessary. Dr Stephanie Seneff and Dr. Anthony Samsel have proven glyphosate increases the incidence of autism when vaccinated. Include Merck in your followup please. Vaccinations end on our watch. If necessary those doctors who advocate harming
children, the definition of a pedophile, self defense could cost that doctor their life.
Monsanto should cut their necks instead!
Did I say I didn’t like them ?
Since Monsatan is people too, they should just lock’em all up in a FEMA camp and let them feed themselves with there seeds no one wants, and Bobo’s job can be to blow sunshine up all there asses.
You seem to be the jealous type. It is really unbecoming.
There goes bobo’s job!
And I was just getting ready to apply since you thought I would be so good at it.
Oh, you mean hire on directly? What’s wrong–does contract work not suit you?
Wouldn’t know. It is just another of your incorrect assumptions. Of course that is all you have.
It was a joke, troll-boy. I know you (supposedly) “only” have a vested interest in the success of GMOs and ag chemicals. I would say (seriously) that you really should go work directly for Monsanto, but business has been slow for them and they might not even be hiring paid trolls anymore–though if they were going to do new hires, that would definitely be a job they’d want to be filling right about now (you know, to do damage control).
Good at promoting death.
Yes death to insects, weeds, and hunger. I knew you got it!
Except when the technology isn’t actually solving “world hunger” and when “super” weeds and insects are becoming a bigger problem than the original weeds and insects…
LOL, you are so near sighted that you can’t actually see the issue. Yes we have plenty of food today so lets not worry about tomorrow. It would be helpful to be able to feed 10 billion people BEFORE we actually get to that number.
It can’t even solve today’s hunger. How do you think it would do the job in the future? Lol.
Gmos help to solve the supply problem with record yields, not the distribution issues. You should really see someone about that vision problem.
Wow, you might have actually said something of intelligence. You’re right that distribution issues are a problem concerning “world hunger”. But guess what, bobo? Normal crops can feed this world if the distribution problems were fixed. We simply don’t need GMOs to feed everyone.
Maybe not at 7 billion, but what about 10 billion? What about saving the oranges that are dying off from disease? And why should we pollute our planet with millions of pounds of synthetic insecticides when we can do it with gmo crops? We may not need them, but they make life a lot better!!!!!
ROFLMAO. Permaculture systems rule over conventional agriculture, and if the whole world switched to that instead of conventional most of those disease and insect problems would be *greatly* reduced. Therefore, the need for those “millions of pounds of synthetic insecticides” (all synthetic pesticides, actually) wouldn’t be there. And yes, there would likely be enough food for 10 billion if we were all doing things right.
Keep dreaming!!! Gmos are reducing the insecticides maybe they will even eventually totally get rid of them and actually be able to do what you can only dream of.
Lol. I’m sorry to have to be the one to point out the big lie in that comment. Your system is beginning to fail. An initial gain means little when in the end your products fail and you have to come out with “bigger and better” products to make amends. 😉
Man kind has always came out with bigger and better. It is what we do. In case of the bio tech companies, sure they must keep developing new products otherwise they would be out of business when all of their patents run out. It really isn’t hard for most, but again you are quite a bit behind most.
What a crock. They’re only coming out with different strains because they have to in order to make up for the first failures. I’m sure they have their own base “selection” to choose from, but they’re stacking some traits because of necessity. Oh, and when I said “bigger and better”, I was jesting. Hence, the quotation marks around the words…
One can only hope.
Not that I’m defending Monsanto (couldn’t care less about the company frankly), but corn prices are down in general due to high supply globally. It makes sense that farmers would cut back on purchases of seed and crop inputs like herbicides if there is an oversupply and low prices. Jumping to conclusions at this point isn’t very smart. It just makes a person look silly and highly biased.
I’m sure losing “16 Country’s Worldwide” business has nothing to do with the LEADERSHIP’S decision to reduce employee numbers.
Which countries are you talking about? The EU countries? The ones that already didn’t grow GM crops? Yeah, I bet the loss of essentially nothing made a real different.
Just a business genius isn’t he. LOL
Didn’t know, I thought they were growing them because of the Pro GMO responses here.
But either way the economy is getting tough for us all.
Only MON810 is approved for planting in Europe and as far as I know it’s pretty much only grown in Spain, which is why the GM crops bans in European countries are largely symbolic.
Business has many requirements, from manufacture and production to market, then maintaining consumer confidence.
The market is very unstable, there are many factors present, but all costs are increasing, making demands and increasing costs in every aspect of a businesses operations.
One of the current problems for the GMO industry is, they are in the news big time. So the trickle down effect is being predicted, and felt by the corporations leadership and costs are being cut.
Labeling and the fight is having a devastating impact on FUTURE PROFIT SPECULATION AND CURRENT OPERATING COSTS WORLDWIDE, not to mention the costs of reacting to negative publicity.
What about the increasing economic stresses of the common man, these will also have a great impact on the expected profits of corporations.
The smart countries are rolling up the welcome mats and preparing their countries to become self sustained.
Pandering to a corporate structure and making statements based on a single mindset isn’t very smart. One must consider the structure as a whole.
Growing GMO crops or not, there is trouble and increased expenses for all, again obvious. Poverty is on the rise, wouldn’t it make sense that ALL corporations will eventually feel it and have to react?
Well got news for you, they are reacting.
I didn’t say anything about the EU countries growing GMO, you did.
I have had jobs before, the first cuts are within the employee ranks when corporations are expecting external influences and need to protect the shareholders profits.
The Mafia business model is the same as all Corporate business models. Now that I think of it, the mob should have been charging Wall Street a licensing fee….. :-/
And now the TPP will boost Monsanto sales as we are forced to buy GMO . A revolution is near. Do not fall for civil war. Revolt like our founders did against tyrannical king George and clan .
And let us not forget the way California – the nation’s breadbasket, is being destroyed by saturation geo-engineering to make way for aluminum resistant GMO’s to dominate the market. Echoes Steppenwolf’s ‘Monster’: “America where are you now, don’t you care about your sons and daughters. Don’t you know we need you now, we need someone to fight the Monster.”
You really need to come back to reality. You really don’t have a clue, but I will give you a hint–you can’t find it in your science fiction books that you are reading.
Let’s hope that Your troll-job is one that Monsanto cuts.
Be hard to since I don’t have one with them.
Go to hell where you belong Monsanto, take Obama with you !