monsanto csr

8/11/2019 Monsanto Csr

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NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FASHION TECHNOLOGY

HYDERABAD

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

SUBMITTED BY: GREESHMA V.

MASTER OF FASHION MANAGEMENT-III

SUBMITTED TO: MS. RAJYA LAKSHMI

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF FASHION MANAGEMENT STUDIES


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Monsanto Companyis a publicly traded American multinational agrochemicaland agricultural biotechnology corporation headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.It is a leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed and of the herbicideglyphosate, which it markets under the Roundup brand.

Founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny, by the 1940s Monsanto was a major

producer of plastics, including polystyrene and synthetic fibres. Notableachievements by Monsanto and its scientists as a chemical company includedbreakthrough research on catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation and being the firstcompany to mass-produce light emitting diodes (LEDs). The company alsoformerly manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT,PCBs, Agent Orange, and recombinant bovine somatotropin (a.k.a. bovinegrowth hormone).

THE CORPORATION MOVIE:

FOX News unintentionally broke the story about how Monsanto is poisoningtheir milk and dairy products. Monsanto sells 'posilac'to farmers, farmers injectposilac into milk producing cows under the premisethat the cows will producemore milk, the cows get sick and develop acne-like sores.The farmers injectantibiotics to keep the sick cows from dying.

Children in American Schools are drinking milk from sick cows that still containsMonsanto's Posilac, the antibiotics, and pus that drips from open sores on theirinfected udders into the milk buckets.

By all accounts, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson are tough, bulldog reporters-the sortof journalists one expect to make some enemies along the way.

Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, two investigative reporters fired by Fox News afterthey refused to water down a story on rBGH, a controversial synthetic hormonewidely used in the United States (but banned in Europe and Canada) to rev upcows' metabolism and boost their milk production. Because of the increased

production, the cows suffer from mastitis, a painful infection of the udders.


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Antibiotics must then be injected, which find their way into the milk, andultimately reduce people's resistance to disease.

Fox demanded that they rewrite the story, and ultimately fired Akre and Wilson.

Jane Akre and her news crew for Tampa, Florida television station WTVTrecount the battle they had with Fox Broadcasting Company and Monsanto in thelate 1990s. She and her fellow reporters planned on airing an investigative reporton the negative effects on Posilac. Before the story aired corporate lawyers forMonsanto threatened to sue Fox News if the story went on.

The Fox Broadcasting Company owned 23 separate stations at the time and didnot want a loss in advertising dollars, so they agreed to cooperate with Monsanto'slawyers. After over 83 rewrites were made to the story it still wasn't aired and thereporters were eventually fired. They sued and won $425,000 in damages but the

decision was overturned on appeal after Monsanto lawyers found a way toremove the "whistle-blower status of the news team. Their status was removedbecause falsifying news is not technically against the law.

Today, some of the US milk supply still comes from cows that have beenmodified with posilac to produce more milk. Akre and Wilson subsequently suedFox under Florida's whistle-blower statute. They proved to a jury that the versionof the story Fox would have had them put on the air was false, distorted or slanted.Akre was awarded $425,000. Then Fox appealed, the verdict was overturned on

a technicality, and Akre lost her award.

Jane Akre and her news crew for Tampa, Florida television station WTVTrecount the battle they had with Fox Broadcasting Company and Monsanto in thelate 1990s. She and her fellow reporters planned on airing an investigative reporton the negative effects on Posilac. Before the story aired corporate lawyers forMonsanto threatened to sue Fox News if the story went on. The Fox BroadcastingCompany owned 23 separate stations at the time and did not want a loss inadvertising dollars, so they agreed to cooperate with Monsanto's lawyers. After

over 83 rewrites were made to the story it still wasn't aired and the reporters wereeventually fired.

They sued and won $425,000 in damages but the decision was overturned onappeal after Monsanto lawyers found a way to remove the "whistle-blower statusof the news team. Their status was removed because falsifying news is nottechnically against the law.


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DARK HISTORY OF MONSANTO

Chemists began formulating synthetic chemicals to combat things like diseaseand insect infestation. Some of these chemicals like DDT have been found over

the course of many years to cause cancer and birth defects. Epstein makes a pointabout there being little difference between creating and allowing products thatkill people over time and killing them with a gun.

Much like DDT, contact with PCBs is known to cause major health problemsincluding liver cancer. Again babies exposed while in the womb are at risk ofchanging sex or developing into neither male nor female, a condition termedintersex. Before the United States Congress banned domestic production in 1979,Monsanto produced 99% of all PCBs used by U.S. industry.

Monsantos most notorious past product must be the herbicide widely known asAgent Orange. During the 1960s and 1970s Monsanto was one of the most

important producers of Agent Orange for the U.S. Armed Forces during theVietnam War (1961-1971). Vietnamese authorities estimate 400,000 people werekilled or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of theuse of the chemical. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 millionpeople are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.

Monsanto was granted regulatory approval for its First biotech product, a dairy

cow hormone. Monsanto developed a recombinant version of BST, brand-namedPosilac bovine somatropin (rBST/rBGH), which is produced through agenetically engineered GMO E. coli bacteria. Synthetic Bovine GrowthHormone (rBGH), approved by the FDA for commercial sale in 1994, despitestrong concerns about its safety.

The harm to animals is also accounted for, such as habitat destruction, factoryfarming, experimentation, and rBGH/rBST Posilac. Epstein recounts thedeceitfulness of the Monsanto Corporation when trying to cover up the harmful

effects of Posilac on cows and humans. Jeremy Rifkin points out the uselessnessof Posilac stemming from the fact that the world overproduces milk and thedemand for increased output is idiotic. A Monsanto promotional video is thenshown instructing farmers to "inject every available cow" because the more cowsyou inject the more milk you produce, and the more milk you produce results inhigher revenues.

Monsanto sold its chemical business in 1997 to build a presence in biotechnology,developing non-organicGMOsoybeans and corn (classified as a pesticide andbanned in the EU) to resist the poisonous effects of its Roundup herbicide.

Monsanto's key business areas are now agrochemicals, seeds and traits (including


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GMO crops), Monsanto also produced nutrasweet, a GMO sugar substitute.Monsanto recently sold its GMO bovine growth hormones monopoly to Eli Lilly,and sold its aspartame business to Pfizer.

MONSANTOS CSR INITIATIVES

Monsantos latest sustainability report is titled United in Growth.

The report documents the contribution Monsanto has made, not just in

2010 but over recent years, to the enrichment of farmers and thesimultaneous increase in the global food supply. Monsanto drives the

point home with human-interest stories and photos of people smiling

and being productive. The message is writ large on page one: If there

were one word to explain what Monsanto is about, it would have to be

farmers.

The report has four parts. First, a section on sustainable agriculture tellsof Monsantos achievements in developing technologies that enable

farmers to produce more while conserving more of the natural

resources that are essential to their success.

Then the subject of stakeholder engagement is addressed in a manner

that appears to be unique to the company. Monsanto describes its

philanthropic efforts and partnership programs as engagementactivities. The discourse covers efforts such as the free distribution of

hybrid seeds in India, training Brazilian farmers in forestry and

biodiversity protection, and giving financial support to young people

enrolled in the organization Future Farmers of America.

Monsantos discussion of corporate governance also takes a singular

turn. In the company vernacular, it means eagerness to learn from theexperiences of others and encourage new ideas in corporate social


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responsibility."The topic has no sharp boundaries. Monsanto explains

how its licensing approach gives farmers more choices; how the

company rewards employees for their stewardship achievements; and

measures taken to prepare employees to handle ethical dilemmas.

The final section deals with operations. It contains routine types of data

on resource and energy consumption, and occupational safety.

Virtually all the quantitative information presented in the report

appears in this section along with more success stories, including the

program begun in 2006 to eliminate the widespread use of child labour

in Indias cotton seed-production industry.

POINT OF VIEW

Over the past decade, Monsanto has become a pop cultural bogeyman, the faceof corporate evil. "Over the years, Monsanto has managed to push throughgovernment policies for its own good. The company and its genetically modifiedorganism (GMO) seeds have been the subject of muckraking documentaries(Forks Over Knives and GMO OMG), global protests, and assaults byeverybody from environmental activists to The Colbert Report.

Monsanto provides a complex example of a company destroyed by itsfailure to anticipate conflicts over possible privatesocial costdifferences associated with the use of its products. Monsanto invested

billions of dollars genetically modifying crops to make them moreproductive and require less use of insecticides, thus rendering thegrowing process less environmentally harmful. Their avowed aim was

to make agriculture sustainable while improving crop yields in poorcountries.

With this aim and with proprietary technologies to implement it,Monsanto should have been a poster child for CSR, while instead theywere destroyed by opposition from environmental groups. Consumeropposition to genetically modified crops led to their being abandoned

by farmers, financially weakening Monsanto, which was then takenover. Monsantos problem was that it focused on one privatesocial

cost gapthat associated with the use of insecticides on growing crops


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but in the process missed another more serious one, that associatedwith peoples fears of genetically.

Monsanto is bad for humanity for several reasons:

1. They use genetically modified seeds with something called terminatortechnology. When a harvest happens, the seeds produced by the new crops arerendered useless. Although in 1999, Monsanto agreed to not commercializeterminator technology. This means farmers have to repeatedly purchase theseseeds.

2. Most crops Monsanto grows are heavily fertilized. In essence one eatingpesticides, fertilizer, antibiotics etc.

3. They have uprooted countless agricultural traditions in places like India,Mongolia, and Vietnam.

For example in India sesame seed oil was once the waypeople made their money and cooked their food cheaper. Monsanto lobbied theIndian government to use soy bean oil (soy is their main product). This destroyedthe economic stability of India's subsistence farmers. It is awful for theireconomy, but also for their health. Immediate heavy intakes of soy can beextremely harmful for the body.They also illegitimately charge huge royalty fromIndian seed companies which keeps seeds prices high in the country.

4. Monsanto because of its recent growth by buying out its competitors isimposing a monopoly on the world grain trade...this largest agricultural marketin the world. The grain trade feeds cows, pigs, chickens, us, everything we eatcomes from grain food. Monsanto by having a monopoly kills smaller businesses,makes us unhealthy, uproots local agriculture etc.

I think it just has given only a strategic makeover to the company by talking aboutsustainability and farmers, but this company is only evil and even its csr is donejust to build up an image. The company is a threat to human race, and future.


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REFERENCE

1. http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-

a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.html

2. http://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-

controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.html

3. http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/monsanto-csr-2010/

4. http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtml

5. http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-

report.aspx
http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.htmlhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.htmlhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.htmlhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.htmlhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.htmlhttp://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/monsanto-csr-2010/http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/monsanto-csr-2010/http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtmlhttp://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtmlhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/corporate-sustainability-report.aspxhttp://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtmlhttp://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/monsanto-csr-2010/http://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.thestreet.com/story/12101202/1/monsanto-grows-controversy-on-genetically-modified-food.htmlhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.htmlhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/monsanto-in-india-a-success-coexisting-with-controversies-112081200033_1.html

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