Monsanto is my Favourite Company

Confession…

I’m an Apple fan. A diehard one at that. Not sleeping outside the store waiting for the next release, diehard, but pretty close.

In my circle, almost every piece of fresh Apple news gets analyzed and anatomized, usually via iMessage on our shiny iPhones.

But a recent lapse in judgement caused me to wonder: are any other companies out there deserving of such affection attention?

While more than a few came to mind, the scientist and tree hugger in me mumbled, Monsanto.

For those who aren’t familiar, Monsanto has spent the better part of the last hundred years advancing the science of chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and now agriculture; while at the same time, perfecting the art of government persuasion, exploitation, and just generally pissing people off.

A masterclass in modern capitalism.

The list of transgressions and reasons for public outcry is–long, and most of it’s well justified, but all that aside, here are 5 things I’ve learned from Monsanto, and why they’re my new favourite company.

Sorry, Apple.

Divide and Conquer

From food additives, to pharmaceuticals, and borderline chemical warfare, Monsanto’s covered a lot of ground since it’s creation in 1901. As the company’s moved forward into our present day, the clear takeaway message for would be business moguls is to pick something, one thing, and do it really, really well. When you’re far and away the best in your field, you’ll always have business, lots of it. Today, Monsanto has shifted it’s core business expenditures almost entirely to research and development in search of new, innovative breakthroughs in agriculture and seed technology. Once they find a winning formula, patents and tight contracts ensure that they’re the only ones with the recipe. For just one example, 90% of the Soybeans grown in the US are sown from Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready, patented seeds. These seeds are designed to work in tandem with RoundUp herbicide (also produced by Monsanto, of course). The herbicide kills every plant in the field except the fancy soy plants, leaving farmers with a perfect field of–soy. Written in the contract is a clause that prohibits farmers from saving seeds from the new plant and planting them the next year. Yes, you gotta buy fresh seed, and fertilizer, every year. Sheer brilliance.

Cut out the middle man

We all hate the experience of trying to get even the simplest task done at work, school or any other place of business, and having to go through the endless tangle of hurdles and red-tape getting in the way. Not surprisingly, so does Monsanto. The government has very strict laws about what goes into your food and medications, for obvious reasons. For drugs, it takes about 4 billion dollars and up to 15 years to bring a new one to market, and even then, only 1 in 10 are finally approved.

Who has time for that??

If you want to make any money in business, you have to know how to cut out the middle man and get straight to the decision makers. Monsanto’s made such an art of this, that laughable terms have been completely fabricated and coolly slipped into legislature. Some of my favourites include “The Principle of Substantial Equivalency” and “Generally Recognized As Safe” (pronounced “grass” for short, how cute). These are essentially laws that allow genetically and chemically engineered foods to be exempted from established testing and approval procedures, and considered as any other traditional fruit or vegetable. Thus skipping that whole 15 year, 4 billion dollar nonsense.

Were these decisions at least based on some science you ask?

“It was a political decision. It was a very broad decision that didn’t apply to just foods. It applied to all products of biotechnology”
-James Maryanski, Co-ordinator of Biotechnology at the FDA

There you go.

Timing is everything

This has almost everything to do with the recent addition to a bill signed into law this March, prohibiting the government from stopping the “…sale, planting, harvest or distribution of any GM seed, even if it is linked to illness or environmental problems”.

What?

We all remember the drama of the “financial cliff” and that new budget with those new tax provisions that just had to get through government lest we face certain doom, right?

Well, while we were all caught up in that, Monsanto was busy prepping this man to slip that tiny clause into a bill that Obama would have little choice but to sign when the 90 page document landed on his desk.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you

There’s an old, cheesy but true saying that goes “no man is an island”. Even a gigantic, global corporation like Monsanto, depends on others for it’s continued success. Of course, the government officials that fast track Monsanto-friendly laws are handsomely rewarded for their efforts, but even more than them, Monsanto relies heavily on continued research in agriculture from the academic sector. Research at the university level certainly isn’t cheap and the amount invested by the government is dwarfed by the amount invested by Monsanto alone. The heading here goes both ways, Monsanto wants cutting edge research to make industry leading products, and universities want money so they can…

Hell, I don’t know universities are just f*cking greedy.

In any case, in exchange for all the funding they could ever need, universities focus their efforts on projects that advance Monsanto’s agenda and suppress projects or findings that don’t. Win-win for both sides if they uphold the deal, lose-lose if either one doesn’t. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Real G’s move in silence– like lasagna.

Thank you Little Wayne for that gem.

This is simple enough, companies like Apple who are forever in the public spotlight are constantly apologizing and sucking up to consumers. Remember this?

For all the hot water Monsanto continuously finds itself in, how many of you even knew of the company before reading this? Despite being responsible for the majority of the food on your plate, public perception is everything for a publicly traded company and in part because they keep things low-key, they’ve been able to enjoy relatively stable growth in the stock market, all the while paying great dividends to their investors in the process. Everyone’s happy.

***

I might one day find my way back to Apple, but for now, these core principles are going to be the guiding light of my near future endeavours, because hey, every dark cloud has a silver lining, or something like that.

Yeah.