June 29, 2011
Monsanto under SEC probe for incentives
By Hal Weitzman in Chicago
Monsanto, the world’s biggest seedmaker by revenue, is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its use of cash to persuade distributors to use its herbicides.
The US company provides cash incentives to distributors to buy Roundup glyphosate, the world’s leading herbicide, and Roundup Ready seeds. Its most recent programme, introduced last year, offered up to $20 per acre.
Monsanto’s herbicide division was once a cash cow, but it has collapsed in the face of low-cost competition from China.
The company has been fighting to stabilise Roundup revenues, and cash incentives have played a big role in re-establishing the brand among farmers.
Monsanto said the watchdog had launched an investigation into its glyphosate incentive programmes for its 2009 and 2010 fiscal years. It said it had received a subpoena for documents from SEC staff and was co-operating with the investigation.
“We take this seriously,” said Hugh Grant, chief executive. He refused to be drawn on the details of the SEC’s concerns. “Out of respect for the SEC and their processes, there’s really not a great deal I can say at the moment. It’s early days. We’re just starting document production and we’re co-operating to our full ability.”
Monsanto is the subject of a separate long-running probe by the US Department of Justice into potential anticompetitive practices in the seed industry.
Monsanto revealed the SEC investigation as it raised its full-year earnings outlook and reported quarterly results well ahead of Wall Street’s expectations.
The seedmaker said net income for the three months to the end of May was $680m, or $1.26 per share, up from $384m, or 70 cents per share, in the same period last year, and above analysts’ average forecasts of $1.11 per share.
Monsanto expects full-year 2011 earnings, excluding extraordinary items, of $2.84-$2.88 per share, up from its previous forecast of $2.72-$2.82. It was raising expectations for free cash flow for 2011 from $900m- $1.1bn to $1.1bn-$1.3bn.
Roundup and other crop chemicals brought in a $76m profit in the quarter, from a loss of $175m in the period a year ago.
Mr Grant said the results indicated that the company was back on track after a disastrous year in which it was forced to scrap profit targets and abandon its premium pricing model as its higher-cost corn seeds failed to deliver hoped-for yields and as sales of Roundup plunged.
“The results of this achievement aren’t measured solely in [market] share points,” he said. “It also comes in the form of momentum, and I believe we now have that back again.”
Monsanto shares were up 4.4 per cent at $69.83 in mid-afternoon in New York.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f731e18c-a252-11e0-bb06-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1QnRUaKkD
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30th June, 2011
theecologist.org
Greenpeace takes on Monsanto over 'pesticides arms race'
by Tom Levitt
Main ingredient of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer is being linked to cancer, birth defects and Parkinson's disease and should be banned, according to campaigners behind new report
The use of the popular weedkiller, 'Roundup', in public parks and on agricultural crops is a danger to public health, according to a new analysis of scientific evidence.
One of the main ingredients of Roundup, as well as several other herbicides, is a chemical known as glyphosate. A review of academic research, conducted by Greenpeace and the anti-GM campaign group GM Freeze, suggests exposure to it can cause cancer, hormonal imbalance, birth defects and neurological illnesses including Parkinson's.
The glyphosate within weedkiller can also be damaging to wildlife and rivers, when it spreads through the soil and into watercourses with run-off.
As the Ecologist reported recently, the pesticide industry and regulators have been accused of repeatedly misleading the public with claims that glyphosate is safe.
In reality, academic studies including one commissioned by one of the main manufacturers Monsanto, showed as long ago as the 1980s that glyphosate caused birth defects in laboratory animals.
Despite more recent evidence of the health risks, including reports of escalating levels of birth defects and cancers in areas of South America where glyphosate is heavily sprayed on crops, the EU Commission followed the US and other countries in approving the use of the chemical as a weedkiller.
The approval has allowed Monsanto to claim that 'regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects…or birth defects.'
Resistance is spreading
The new Greenpeace campaign, backed by the report, is targeting Monsanto in particular because of the spread of its GM crops, genetically engineered to be tolerant to glyphospate. This allows farmers to spray the chemical over the top of the crop, killing almost all weeds without affecting the crop.
The campaign-launch comes as US officials began investigating claims Monsanto provided cash incentives to farmers to use its glyphospate products between 2009 and 2010.
As well as the potential human health and environmental impact of the use of glyphosate, it is also presenting a growing weed-resistance threat.
Far from reducing the cost of weed control for farmers, the heavy use of glyphosate herbicides by farmers is seeing a rise in the number of weeds becoming resistant to the chemical.
According to Greenpeace, resistance to glyphosate has now been confirmed in more than 20 weed species, with over 100 resistant strains identified, covering nearly 6 million hectares, primarily in Argentina, Brazil and the US. It fears Monsanto and other chemical companies want to use even more toxic chemicals to combat the resistance, creating a 'pesticide arms race'.
'Whether we like it or not, we all receive exposure to herbicides: sometimes from aerial spraying, sometimes through chemical residues in our food and sometimes because of chemical run off from agricultural land that pollutes nearby fields, seas or rivers,' Greenpeace sustainable farming campaigner Lasse Bruun, said.
'There are no winners in the war against superweeds - but human health, the environment, farmers and you, the consumer, all the losers.'
Useful links
Herbicide tolerance and GM crops: why the world should be Ready to Round up glyphosate
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/961236/greenpeace_takes_on_monsanto_over_pesticides_arms_race.html
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June 30, 2011
Time to End the Chemical War Against Superweeds
Blogpost by Lasse Bruun
Have you ever thought about how your favourite picnic spot in the local city park is managed? Or what happens when herbicides are sprayed on the crops that make up your breakfast cereal? The truth is that in both city parks and the intensive agriculture used to produce breakfast cereals, weed killers are used on a massive scale, under the unproven assumption that they are safe. Roundup, one of the most common commercially available herbicides, is marketed by US agrochemical company Monsanto as “safe” for the environment, and for humans – but “deadly for weeds”. Our new report, Herbicide Tolerance and GM Crops written jointly with fellow non-governmental organisation GM Freeze, however, paints a very different picture.
One of the main ingredients of Roundup, as well as several other herbicides, is a chemical known as glyphosate. Numerous studies covered in the report associate exposure to glyphosate with cancer, birth defects and neurological illnesses (including Parkinson’s). Alarmingly, lab testing suggests that glyphosate can cause damage to cells, including human embryo cells. Other studies mentioned in the report indicate that glyphosate may be a gender-bender chemical that interferes with our hormonal balance. Do you still feel like having your picnic and breakfast cereal?
The environmental impacts of glyphosate are not much better with evidence suggesting that the chemical has a damaging impact on our rivers and on the animals that live in them. It also disrupts nutrients in soil, exposing plants (that are not weeds) to disease and could end up contaminating drinking water.
Whether we like it or not, we all receive exposure to herbicides: sometimes from aerial spraying, sometimes through chemical residues in our food and sometimes because of chemical run off from agricultural land that pollutes nearby fields, seas or rivers. Nobody is happy with this situation, as an extensive survey on attitudes to the environment published by the European Commission last week shows that, across the board, Europeans feel they need more information on chemicals and farming.
Of particular worry is the association between glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) herbicide-tolerant crops, known as Roundup-Ready. These crops, so far are mostly grown in the Americas, are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate, so that they can survive massive spraying of Roundup to eliminate weeds. However, these weeds are now becoming increasingly resistant to glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup.
Resistance to glyphosate has now been confirmed in over 20 weed species, with over 100 resistant strains identified, covering nearly 6 million hectares, primarily in Argentina, Brazil and the U.S, where GM Roundup Ready crops are grown. Controlling these glyphosate-resistant weeds has become a major problem for farmers, prompting manufacturers of glyphosate and GM crops like Monsanto to recommend further increases in the deployment and concentration of herbicides - including the use of chemicals that are even more toxic than glyphosate. This escalation in the pesticide ‘arms race’ is creating a vicious circle that is producing a new breed of superweeds.
There are no winners in the war against superweeds - but human health, the environment, farmers and you, the consumer, all the losers. Given the problems identified so far, Greenpeace is demanding a review of the use of glyphosate in the EU and that no glyphosate-tolerant GM crops should be authorised in Europe or elsewhere. With a major reform of European farming policy just underway, governments need to recognise that the industrial agriculture system where GM crops and chemicals thrive is profoundly unsustainable.
Failure to act will threaten food production, jeopardise human lives and put the environment severely at risk. It is time to round up glyphosate for good and embrace ecological farming allowing us to once again enjoy our picnic and breakfast cereal.
Download the report: Herbicide tolerance and GM crops
Lasse Bruun is Greenpeace International's Senior Campaigner for Sustainable Agriculture
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/time-to-end-the-chemical-war-against-superwee/blog/35504
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