Monsanto is a Fortune 500 company
whose headquarters are based in St. Louis, Missouri. In the United States,
Monsanto has 10,277 employees that work in 146 facilities in 33 of the states.
Globally, the company has 21,183 employees in 404 facilities in 66 countries.
Monsanto prides itself on being a sustainable agricultural company that
delivers products into the farming world that support small and large farmers.
Its goal is to have farmers produce more with their land while conserving water
and energy. Monsanto hosts agricultural and vegetable seeds, crop protection
chemicals, and plant biotechnology traits. Monsanto wants improve farmer’s
lives, produce more, and conserve more. Monsanto sells corn, soybean,
cotton, wheat, canola, and sugar cane seeds. Other Monsanto products include
insect repellent, weed killers and general farm-productivity increasers.
RoundUp
use and popularity has increased vastly since 1996. As Monsanto’s most
well-known product, RoundUp is used to restore and protect habitats by killing unwanted
vegetation in everyday habitats and refuge areas, but it is mostly primarily by
gardeners and on farms by farmers to kill all plants that are not the targeted
growing plant. RoundUp is the product name for glyphosate, which is an active,
broad-spectrum herbicide. Monsanto advertises that glyphosate is water-plant-environment
friendly, highly effective on more than 190 species of weeds. This includes
many types of grasses, weeds, and sedges. Glyphosate degrades over time in soil
and natural water and is withstood by even genetically-engineered plants, so it
is more common to find glyphosate embedded in a GM crop than it is in an
organic plant. RoundUp contains glyphosate, water, and a soap-like surfactant
blend that has changed throughout the years since RoundUp’s first debut in 1974.
Glyphosate
is a controversial ingredient. Monsanto claims RoundUp can produce better, more
nutritious food that resists climate change and can help decrease pesticide
use. All seventeen experts from the World Health Organization InternationalAgency for Research on Cancer (IARC) meeting agreed that glyphosate is “probably
carcinogenic to humans.” The effects of
the widely used RoundUp in America are soaring. For example, butterfly
population in the Corn Belt has decreased intensely due to RoundUp killing
Milkweed, a staple in a Monarch butterfly’s diet. In response to IARC’s
findings, Bermuda, Sri Lanka, and Colombia halted the use and import of
glyphosate.
In
2009, a French court found Monsanto guilty of lying and advertising its RoundUp
as “biodegradable” and “eco-friendly.” Studies are beginning to link glyphosate
to cancer, autism, gastrointestinal diseases, obesity, allergies, depression,
infertility, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson’s disease. Residues from RoundUp
remain in our food and enhance the effects of other chemicals. Glyphosate
affects beneficial bacteria in our body, allowing certain pathogens to overgrow
once they enter our body.
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