How should Monsanto manage the potential harm?

How should Monsanto manage the potential harm to plant and animal life from using products such as roundup? To manage the potential harm to plant and animal life from using products such as roundup, the government has required farms using Monsanto's GM products to create “refuges”.

Is Monsanto an ethical company?

Overall, Monsanto can be described as an unethical company. While there are many reasons to criticize Monsanto's unethical practices and negative externalities, the company can still be considered ethical for their positive contributions to the world food supply.

Who are Monsanto's stakeholders?

Monsanto's main stakeholders include Customers, Green Lobbyist Groups and Society/The General Public.

Does Monsanto maintain an ethical culture that can effectively respond to various stakeholders?

Monsanto does not maintain an ethical culture that can effectively respond to various stakeholders because to build a strong business you have to maintain your sense of respect toward the government and the environment.

What has given customers and other stakeholders a voice they did not have in the past?

Social media have given customers and other stakeholders a voice they did not have in the past, and businesses are listening.

14 - Monsanto: A Growing Controversy and Ethics

How does Monsanto affect farmers?

Monsanto imposes contracts and wields patents that forbid farmers from saving seeds year-to-year, a practice that has been part of agriculture for centuries. They demand farmers buy new, expensive seeds each year. And if a farmer stops using Monsanto's patented seeds, they are at risk of breaching their contract.

What is the Monsanto Protection Act?

The so-called Monsanto Protection Act is actually a provision (officially known as Section 735) within a recently passed Congressional spending bill, H.R. 933, which exempts biotech companies from litigation in regard to the making, selling and distribution of genetically engineered (GE) seeds and plants.

What did Monsanto do wrong?

In 2012 a French court found Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a farmer who reported suffering neurological problems after using one of the company's herbicides. In 2020 Bayer agreed to pay $10 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits alleging that Roundup causes cancer.

How does Monsanto control seeds?

With Monsanto seeds, a farmer plants his crop, then treats it later with Roundup to kill weeds. That takes the place of labor-intensive weed control and plowing.

Is Monsanto a good company?

Monsanto is a major producer of pesticides and genetically modified crops, selling a package of farm products that have improved yields and cut down on some pest problems. But while that business has made the company popular with many farmers, a series of scandals have damaged its reputation with consumers.

What was Monsanto found guilty of?

HONOLULU (AP) — The Monsanto Company pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally using and storing agricultural chemicals in Hawaii, and will pay $12 million in fines.

Is the Monsanto Protection Act still in effect 2017?

The Farmer Assurance Provision under Sec. 735 of the Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill, otherwise known as “The Monsanto Protection Act” won't be renewed. The Senate bill to keep the government funded has dropped the vastly unpopular provision that was quietly added to another spending bill in March.

Who signed the Monsanto Protection Act?

“President Obama knowingly signed the Monsanto Protection Act over the urgent pleas of more than 250,000 Americans who asked that he use his executive authority to veto it,” stated the organization's website.

What can farmers do to protect their crops?

Today, farmers rely on a group of chemicals called pesticides to help in the field. This includes herbicides to manage weeds, insecticides to manage bugs, and fungicides to prevent infection by fungal diseases.

What is Monsanto known for?

Monsanto was the world's largest seed company and owned over 80% of all the genetically modified (GM, also called genetically engineered) seeds planted around the world. Bayer, the second largest agrochemical company in the world, bought Monsanto for $63 billion.

What happens if a farmer who is not growing a GMO crop has his fields contaminated by pollen and seeds from his neighbors?

44 When non-GMO crops are contaminated by GMO pollen, the “GMO-free” status of these crops is lost. The result of this genetic contamination causes non-GMO crops to become unfit for sale.

Why is Roundup still being sold?

The popular weed killer Roundup is still being sold because U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) research indicates that “there are no risks to public health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label and that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.” The EPA also believes that glyphosate use is ...

What is glyphosate in food?

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is a widely used and harmful herbicide used on crops and other plants to kill weeds. Glyphosate residue can be found in your food supply — on produce, in meat, and in packaged foods. Glyphosate in animals gets concentrated in collagen.

Why is Monsanto being sued?

Farmers, farm workers, horticulturalists, landscapers, gardeners, government employees, and a host of other people have filed individual lawsuits against Monsanto based on allegations that Monsanto knew about the link between exposure to Roundup and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but failed to warn consumers.

Does Monsanto really sue farmers?

Monsanto The agricultural giant Monsanto has sued hundreds of small farmers in the United States in recent years in attempts to protect its patent rights on genetically engineered seeds that it produces and sells, a new report said on Tuesday.

Why is Monsanto a monopoly?

Through aggressive vertical integration, the Monsanto-Bayer merger represents a near-monopoly on the agriculture supply chain, which eliminates marketplace competition and forces farmers' complete reliance on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

What has Monsanto done good?

Monsanto's noble efforts have garnered the adoration of numerous, notable do-gooders, including philanthropist Bill Gates and agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose dwarf wheat revolutionized agriculture, saving an estimated one billion lives from starvation.

What else have Monsanto done?

It sold DDT, PCBs, the controversial dairy cow hormone, rBGH, and the cancer-linked Aspartame sweetener. Starting in the '80s, however, Monsanto shed its chemicals and plastics divisions, bought up seed companies, invested in bio genetics research, and ultimately reincorporated itself as an agricultural company.

Why does Monsanto use GMO?

Many GMO crops are specifically engineered to resist certain weed killers, such as the potentially carcinogenic Roundup, so planting GMOs means that farmers end up using the associated chemicals, and using them in more ways, when they use GMO crops.