Section 1 - Company Overview.doc

Monsanto Company (MON) Yennie Lane Ella Hazel Section 1 - Company Overview Monsanto is a transnational company which provides agricultural products for famers around the world. It is the world’s leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed in the Roundup brand of herbicides, and in other brands. Monsanto is also the leading producer of genetically engineered seed. It provides the technology in 90% of the genetically engineered used in the US market. It headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto also owned Agracetus. It exclusively produces Roundup Ready soybean seed for the commercial market. It acquired Seminis Inc, making it the world’s largest conventional company. Monsanto sells its products by distributors, independent retailers and dealers, agricultural cooperatives, plant raisers, and agents. It sells products directly to farmers, too. Monsanto was founded in 1901. In 2000, the original Monsanto enters into a merger and changes its name to Pharmacia Corporation. Now, Monsanto Company is headquartered in St Louis, Missouri. (/q/pr?s=MON+Profile) John Francis Queeny is the founder of Monsanto Company. The company’s first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin, which is sold to the Coca-Cola Company. In 1919, Monsanto establishes its presence in Europe by entering into a partnership with Graesser’s Chemical Works at Cefni Mawr near Ruabon, Wales to produce vanillin, salicylic acid, aspirin and later rubber processing chemicals. This site was later sold and closed in 2010. In the 1920s, Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals like sulfuric acid, and the decade ended with Queeny’s son Edgar Monsanto Queeny taking over the company in 1928. Monsanto become a leading manufacturer of plastics, including polystyrene and synthetic fibers in the 1940s. Other main products have included the herbicides 2,4,5-T, DDT, and Agent Orange used primarily during the Vietnam War as a defoliant agent, the artificial sweetener aspartame,