Whether or not you’re from the US, Monsanto is a name that you must be familiar with. This agrochemical giant stirred up the wrath of practically the entire world a decade ago. Nicknamed ‘Monsatan,’ Monsanto is considered to be the poster child for corporate corruption.
With its humble beginnings as the US producer of saccharine (a sweetener) in 1901, it quickly gained favor in the public eye. However, the years that followed revealed the real and sinister face of the company. Today, Monsanto may not exist by name (having been acquired by Bayer).
Yet, the world is reeling under the damages already done by a corporation that believes in putting profits over people. In 100+ years of its existence, Monsanto has committed a wide range of evil acts. Even after its merger with the German biotechnology juggernaut Bayer, the situation is hardly under control.
Neither has this union washed away Monsanto’s past sins nor is the future looking too promising. In this article, we will discuss some distinct vices of Monsanto that have led to its damnation and lost reputation.
The Agent Orange Tragedy
In 1961, Monsanto participated in manufacturing a powerful defoliant herbicide called Agent Orange. Around this time, the Vietnam War was raging, and Monsanto was among the nine wartime contractors to the government for producing Agent Orange.
The US military forces sprayed Agent Orange over Vietnam’s foliage between 1962 and 1971. The purpose was to remove dense tropical forest cover so that the enemy army was exposed. Nearly 11,000 gallons of this chemical herbicide were sprayed over 12,000 miles of land.
The 10-year period of spraying Agent Orange proved to be incredibly costly (not as much to Monsanto as to Vietnam’s citizens). Even decades later, exposure to this herbicide caused people of all ages to develop birth defects, cancer, and other life-threatening complications.
At least 400,000 were killed or maimed, and another 500,000 were born with birth defects. Finally, veterans filed a lawsuit against the chemical giant in 1979. They alleged that Agent Orange exposed them to dioxin levels 100,000 times the acceptable limit.
Decades later, Monsanto agreed to settle all Agent Orange cases with a $21 million fund for medical testing, $63 million for screening, and $9 million for professional home cleaning across the Nitro sea. Though community and individual concerns were addressed, it compels the question – what about the lives lost and left crippled by the incident?
The Glyphosate Disaster
Just when the world could not believe that Monsanto was capable of further catastrophe, it cooked up (discovered) another – enter glyphosate. In 1971, the company patented its first-ever systemic herbicide that could kill weeds competing with crops.
Roundup (the brand name for the herbicide) was touted as an agricultural blessing for the pre-planting and maintenance treatment of crops. For decades, commercial farmers and even homeowners used this weed killer for farming, lawn care, gardening, etc.
In the early years of the 2000s, the harmful health effects of Roundup were discovered. Unfortunately, glyphosate was found to be a threat to not only bad weeds but also healthy ones (being a non-selective herbicide). The healthy weeds generally help the plants to extract nutrients buried deep inside the soil when their roots cannot go any further.
This spelled bad news for the health of crops sprayed with Roundup. However, what’s even worse is that glyphosate was found to be a human carcinogen. In other words, it has the potential to cause terminal conditions like cancer. Cases started surfacing after which an active Roundup litigation was created.
The first-ever case to go to trial (and win) was that of Dewayne Johnson. It was filed in 2016 and won a whopping $289 million settlement in 2018. Johnson, like many others, had suffered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma due to regular glyphosate exposure. Gradually, thousands of victims began searching for the best lawyer for the Roundup lawsuit to win fair settlements.
In December 2023, Bayer lost another trial, where a Philadelphia jury ordered it to pay $3.5 million as compensation. According to TorHoerman Law, the corporation has settled over 100,000 Roundup lawsuits to date (80%). As of 2024, a little over 4,000 cases are still pending in multidistrict litigation (MDL).
What action did Bayer take to rectify the error of its ways? It set up a five-point plan to survive the legal battle and took down Roundup for residential use from 2023. The weed killer is still available for commercial farming.
Attempts to Control the World’s Food Supply
When Monsanto introduced its genetically modified seed products, there was a global outrage as the masses conducted the ‘March against Monsanto.’ When the seed giant joined hands with Bayer, people were convinced that this move was to tighten control over the world’s food supply.
If we look closely, the veracity of this notion is not all too improbable. The main reason is that the merger reduces competition in the food chain, and it’s easier to control the people when you control their food.
What’s interesting about Monsanto’s practices is that they take a reversal of the natural order. In other words, any company selling a new product must prove that it is safe before marketing to the public. In Monsanto/Bayer’s case, the opposite is true.
It is the public that must prove its GMO products to be unsafe to stop the company from marketing. If that is not a mark of corporate evil, what is? Also, four of the major US crops are now genetically engineered – cotton, corn, canola, and soybean.
Besides marketing its patented seeds for these crops, Monsanto participates in lobbying and pressurizing farmers to purchase its products. Does that sound like a healthy marketing strategy?
From Monsanto’s perspective, this makes perfect sense because GMO seeds may be replanted, but that does not serve its purpose. They have no ‘terminator genes’, and that is why farmers must sign a contract to not replant them (the issue is a legal one, not a biological one).
These attempts to monopolize American farming are called ‘efforts to ensure sufficient food production in the future.’ However, the guise of sustainable farming hides the evil plot to control the world’s food supply.
The events mentioned in this article only offer a glimpse into Monsanto’s misdeeds. If one were to pen them all down, time would no longer be of the essence. Even after being exposed countless times, the company still has supporters cheering it on.
However, its track record is such that not even a powerful multinational like Bayer can wipe the slate clean.