Monsanto’s String of Crises: Why US Regulatory Oversight Keeps Failing
Do we truly understand today’s agriculture and food?
When it comes to farming, the first image that springs to mind for many is still that age-old picture of farmers toiling in the fields. Yet in reality, propelled by technology and capital, the landscape of modern agriculture has been transformed beyond recognition: herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified crops, digital agriculture… Our food has long since taken a bold leap into the world of new technologies.
To gain a deeper understanding of the systemic shifts in the food and agriculture sector over the past century, Monsanto, the US agricultural giant, offers a compelling case study. From its founding in 1901 to its acquisition by the German multinational Bayer in 2016, Monsanto has consistently been a defining player in the evolution of the global food system. From food additives and chemical pesticides to agricultural seeds, its influence continues to shape our lives to this day.
Published this year by Sanlian Academic, the new book *The Seed Empire* traces the stark expansion of Monsanto’s corporate empire through global field research. It lays bare how the company’s chemicals and genetically modified technologies have seeped into virtually every crevice of the global food supply.
In August 2024, Tencent News’ *Species on the Table* series, in collaboration with Foodthink, Sanlian Academic, Yali, and the Farmers’ Seed Network, convened experts to re-examine Monsanto’s rise. Together, we explore how capitalism has fundamentally remade today’s food and agriculture systems.
Why has regulatory oversight in the United States consistently lagged despite Monsanto’s repeated misconduct? Is scientific research, which purports to be objective, still worthy of our trust? And for everyday citizens and consumers, what kind of regulation could genuinely protect us?
Engaging with these questions may not yield simple or cut-and-dried answers, but it at least encourages each of us to formulate our own.
I. The Rise of Monsanto
Zhang Jing (Editor, Sanlian Bookstore Academic Publishing Division) : This book is a collaborative project between Sanlian Bookstore and Yale University Press. Sanlian has long been engaged in contemporary intellectual life through academic and ideological development. We hope to use books as a medium to illuminate the complex dimensions of contemporary issues, rather than simply taking a side or offering superficial critiques of trends. Food and agriculture represent one such domain we simply cannot bypass. While our very survival depends on food, the vast majority of us have little understanding or awareness of how our current food is actually produced and consumed through numerous supply chain stages. A key reason for this is that the entire structure of modern agriculture has become fundamentally different from traditional farming.
Through the representative case study of the American corporation Monsanto, *Seed Empire* presents a historical account of the systematic transformations in the food and agricultural sectors over the past century, and particularly the last half-century. It chronicles Monsanto’s complete history spanning over a hundred years, from its founding in 1901 to its acquisition by Bayer in 2016, and dedicates considerable attention to its product development, production methods, and corporate operations. As readers, we will find that these models continue to shape our lives today, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly.
Zhang Jing: For years, Monsanto has been widely recognised as an agricultural business. However, it originally began as a chemical company, first establishing a commercial foothold through saccharin production. As early as 1918, its saccharin was being sold in China. The company later moved into caffeine production, eventually becoming one of Coca-Cola’s principal ingredient suppliers. As markets for saccharin and caffeine began to contract, Monsanto sought alternative revenue streams by refining other chemicals from coal tar to stay afloat. This included polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)—one of Monsanto’s most lucrative products. The manufacture of these chemicals quickly triggered severe toxic pollution.
Subsequently, regulatory bodies began investigating the harmful effects of its products, pushing Monsanto’s traditional business model into crisis. Consequently, the company shifted its focus to agriculture, beginning the production of herbicides. The precursor to these modern herbicides was Agent Orange, the infamous defoliant of the 1960s (note: a powerful herbicide named for the orange colour of the dye added to the mixture during spraying). During the Vietnam War, the US military made widespread use of Agent Orange to clear rainforest cover for operations. This inflicted long-term devastation on Vietnamese society, including a surge in birth defects, widespread disfigurement among civilians, and persistent soil contamination. Meanwhile, as the largest manufacturer of Agent Orange, Monsanto reaped substantial profits.
This coincided with the dawn of genetic engineering. Monsanto modified major cash crops—soybeans, maize, and cotton—successfully engineering them to withstand the chemicals. Consequently, herbicides and seeds were tightly bundled for sale; farmers had to purchase Monsanto’s proprietary seeds alongside its herbicides. Yet, a new problem soon emerged: the weeds themselves began to develop resistance. Forced to adapt once more, Monsanto reformulated its products, rolling out dicamba, a more potent herbicide. This created a vicious cycle. As Monsanto continuously iterated and upgraded its formulations, farmers were compelled to repeatedly purchase the latest versions to combat increasingly resilient superweeds. It was through this very process that Monsanto gradually built a seed empire. By 2005, it had become the world’s largest seed supplier, with its varieties being rolled out across Vietnam, Brazil, India, and numerous other nations.
II. How Capitalism Transformed Agriculture?
Xu Zhun (Professor of Economics, Sun Yat-sen University): As a typical large-scale capitalist enterprise, Monsanto serves as a historically representative case. For the past two or three centuries, capitalism has maintained a close relationship with agriculture ever since its emergence. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the history of capitalism will immediately recognise that its earliest chapters were deeply intertwined with the land, most notably through Britain’s Enclosure Movement, famously characterised as an era of ‘sheep eating men’.
The emergence of the chemical industry greatly expanded these possibilities. In livestock farming, for instance, with poultry and sheep, accelerated growth cycles can be achieved through specialised feed, hastening the time animals reach slaughter weight to be sold as meat for profit at the earliest opportunity. This represents a fundamental shift in control over livestock and a transformation of farming practices. With the advent of biotechnology, this control became even more direct, enabling the genetic modification of animal breeds themselves.
Megacorporations such as Monsanto possess a powerful incentive to dominate agriculture—exerting control over pesticides and seeds to dictate what we eat and use, ultimately to maximise profit. Yet the products their profit motives drive them to manufacture do not necessarily align with the public interest. The book The Seed Empire vividly illustrates this divergence of interests, while also revealing how such corporations employ various strategies to obscure it.
Tianle: You just touched on the capitalist agricultural system, which prioritises speed to accelerate food production. Monsanto’s flagship products are genetically modified soybeans and maize, which rapidly captured more than ninety per cent of the US market. The vast majority of this soy and maize is used as feed for livestock such as cattle and sheep. On one hand, these technologies appear to drive down the cost of meat, which seems like a positive development. On the other, they give rise to inherent contradictions that may ultimately prove detrimental to consumers.
In truth, as we later discovered, its herbicides and pesticides generated substantial environmental problems of their own. Why? Because the company fixated exclusively on short-term efficacy, entirely disregarding nature’s co-evolutionary mechanisms. In the short term, its herbicides did seem effective, requiring only light application. But given time, weeds inevitably evolved, developing resistance. To keep them at bay, one was forced to apply ever-increasing doses. This proved to be an unanticipated reckoning from nature.
III. Two Prevailing Biases on Science and Technology
Zhou Mujun: Public perception of scientific and technological research tends to swing between two extremes. One view holds that science and technology are entirely objective and impartial. To put it in English: knowledge is the only way of speaking truth to power. The assumption is that rigorous research alone will reveal the truth. The other extreme is far more cynical, assuming that scientists work hand in glove with power and capital. In my view, both perspectives are somewhat skewed.
We can examine the relationship between scientific research and the public interest from two perspectives. First, while the procedural frameworks governing scientific research are designed to ensure that researchers remain objective, neutral and impartial, free from preconceived notions, scientists do not conduct their work in a vacuum. The selection of research topics, the framing of questions, and which projects secure funding and support—and which do not—are all shaped by the social environment and structures in which researchers operate. Power and capital may not be able to force scientists to claim black is white, but they undoubtedly influence how researchers assess the significance of certain issues. These dynamics warrant careful reflection.
The Monsanto case is a perfect illustration. From the outset, the company framed everything through a narrow, micro-biological lens. Yet the issues surrounding GM seeds extend far beyond the microscopic. Understanding weed evolution, for instance, demands ecological and environmental perspectives. The adoption of GM seeds has also altered how farming communities are organised and shifted the power dynamics between growers and seed corporations. To grasp the full impact of these shifts, a sociological lens is equally necessary. This demonstrates that an endorsement from technical experts does not automatically equate to an unbiased representation of the truth. We must also consider the specific lens and level of analysis through which these experts are evaluating the issue.
IV. Why Has US Government Regulation Repeatedly Failed?
Zhang Jing: Reading Seed Empire is genuinely infuriating. We sometimes joke that it’s unfit for bedtime reading—you simply won’t be able to rest once you’ve started. The author employs an interwoven narrative: whenever Monsanto launches a new product, a while later its negative consequences inevitably surface. These might be pollution from the manufacturing process, or health and environmental issues once the product hits the market, invariably followed by lawsuits. Such cases tend to drag on, leaving victims waiting an age for compensation. As the inventors of the new technologies and products, the company holds all the technical cards, giving it the upper hand once products are on the market. As we all know, ethics cannot be regulated. Regulation can only address specific, tangible issues, meaning it tends to emerge only after problems have already occurred. Consequently, regulation is inherently reactive. Moreover, it often arrives long after the initial crisis, because pinpointing the root cause among multiple possibilities takes considerable time. On top of this, Monsanto employs a formidable lobbying machine that infiltrates government channels from every angle to mount its defence.
I believe this is a point worth our serious reflection: what mechanisms can guarantee the public’s basic right to know the true facts, and how can we justly confront such costs?
Tianle: From the book *Empire of Seeds*, it is clear that many of Monsanto’s products caused severe environmental pollution, yet the company never shouldered the costs of ecological remediation. It made a fortune selling these products, while the myriad negative consequences were borne by society at large. From an economic perspective, how would you characterise this phenomenon?
In reality, however, the situation is rarely so straightforward. For a company like Monsanto, the costs it actually incurs are frequently starkly disconnected from the costs society ultimately bears. Moreover, all too often, there is no particularly effective way to tackle it.
V. What kind of regulation can better address risks?
That said, this shouldn’t lead us to a uniformly bleak view of the law. In other contexts, where legislation and enforcement are fairer and government oversight is more effective, the system can still deliver meaningful results.
Naturally, we need the law to strike a balance between corporate private interests and the public good, but we cannot simply rely on a powerful government and stringent legislation to solve every problem. After all, lawmaking and enforcement unfold within specific social contexts, and must ultimately take into account public concern and collective will regarding these issues.
Tianle: The topic of food regulation is particularly intriguing. During this summer’s Olympics, there was an international campaign to oust Coca-Cola as a sponsor. Beverage giants like Coca-Cola leverage sport to promote their products—through advertising, athlete endorsements, and so on—trying to associate inherently unhealthy drinks with healthy lifestyles and individuals. It’s a rather cunning marketing strategy. Yet, people seem reluctant to let the government or the law dictate what they eat and drink. To what extent is regulation actually useful, and how necessary is it really?
Xu Zhun: Regulation is undoubtedly useful. The real question is: what price do we pay for that usefulness? The law is, of course, vital, but it is inherently cumbersome and slow-moving; expecting it to act as a preventative measure against every potential issue is simply unrealistic. Placing faith in a risk-averse legal framework is itself a cautious approach. You simply cannot be on constant guard against every possible threat. In any society, given a fixed legal or regulatory system, individuals will inevitably exploit loopholes for their own gain.
In my view, the fundamental issue comes down to the balance of interests. For example, when a new technology emerges, every potentially affected group should have representatives who can deliberate in some form of committee. Relevant experts must clearly explain the technology’s pros and cons, allowing space for questions, debate, and thorough communication. Above all, it demands active and widespread engagement from the general public.
*Originally published in Tencent News’ “Let’s Chat Science”
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