company inc. type public acquisition by bayer pending traded as nyse mon s & p 500 component industry agribusiness founded 1901 ; 115 years ago 1901 st. louis missouri u.s. founder john francis queeny headquarters creve coeur missouri u.s. key people hugh grant chairman president and ceo 1 products herbicides pesticides crop seeds revenue us 15 billion 2015 2 operating income us 3.52 billion 2015 2 net income us 2.3 billion 2015 2 total assets us 21.92 billion 2015 2 number of employees 25.500 2015 2 website www.monsanto.com monsanto company is a publicly traded american multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation headquartered in creve coeur greater st. louis missouri . it is a leading producer of genetically engineered ge seed and roundup a glyphosate based herbicide . monsanto s role in agricultural changes biotechnology products and lobbying of government agencies along with its history as a chemical company have made the company controversial . in september 2016 the board of monsanto agreed to accept the offer of bayer to purchase monsanto for 66 billion 128 share pending regulatory approval . 3 4 founded in 1901 by john francis queeny monsanto initially produced food additives such as saccharin and vanillin expanded into industrial chemicals such as sulfuric acid and pcbs in the 1920s and by the 1940s was a major producer of plastics including polystyrene and synthetic fibers . notable achievements by monsanto and its scientists as a chemical company included breakthrough research on catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation and being the first company to mass produce light emitting diodes leds . the company also formerly manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide ddt pcbs agent orange and recombinant bovine growth hormone . monsanto was among the first to genetically modify a plant cell as one of four groups announcing the introduction of genes into plants in 1983 5 and was among the first to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops which it did in 1987 . it remained one of the top 10 u.s. chemical companies until it divested most of its chemical businesses between 1997 and 2002 through a process of mergers and spin offs that focused the company on biotechnology . monsanto was one of the first companies to apply the biotechnology industry business model to agriculture using techniques developed by genentech and other biotech drug companies in the late 1970s in california . 6 2 6 in this business model companies invest heavily in research and development and recoup the expenses through the use and enforcement of biological patents . 7 8 9 10 its seed patenting model has also been criticized as biopiracy and a threat to biodiversity . 11 12 13 contents 1 history 1.1 1901 to wwii 1.2 post war period 1.3 1960s and 1970s 1.4 1980s to early 1990s emphasis on agribiotech 1.5 1996 to present growth into world s largest grossing seed company 1.6 spin offs and mergers 1.7 acquisition history 2 products and associated issues 2.1 current products 2.1.1 glyphosate herbicides 2.1.2 crop seed 2.1.2.1 india specific issues 2.2 former products 2.2.1 polychlorinated biphenyls pcbs 2.2.1.1 united states 2.2.1.2 united kingdom 2.2.2 rbgh recombinant bovine growth hormone 2.3 pipeline products 2.3.1 glyphosate resistant wheat 2.4 pipeline products cancelled 2.4.1 terminator seeds 2.4.2 animal genetics 3 legal actions and controversies 3.1 litigation 3.2 controversies outside the us 3.2.1 argentina 3.2.2 brazil 3.2.3 china 3.2.4 india 3.3 march against monsanto protests 3.4 improper accounting for incentive rebates 4 political contributions and lobbying 4.1 united states 4.2 united kingdom 4.3 continental europe 5 donations 6 u.s. public officials connections 7 sponsorships 8 awards 9 see also 10 documentaries 11 references 12 bibliography 13 external links history edit further information timeline of monsanto 1901 to wwii edit monsanto was founded in st. louis missouri in 1901 as a chemical company 14 by john francis queeny a 30 year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry . he funded the start up with his own money and capital from a soft drink distributor and gave the company his wife s maiden name his father in law was emmanuel mendes de monsanto a wealthy financier of a sugar company active in vieques puerto rico and based in st. thomas in the danish west indies . the company s first products were commodity food additives such as the artificial sweetener saccharin caffeine and vanillin . 15 6 16 17 18 19 monsanto expanded to europe in 1919 by entering a partnership with graesser s chemical works at cefn mawr near ruabon wales to produce vanillin aspirin and its raw ingredient salicylic acid and later rubber processing chemicals . this site was later sold and closed in 2010 . in the 1920s monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals such as sulfuric acid and pcbs . queeny s son edgar monsanto queeny took over the company in 1928 . in 1926 the company founded and incorporated a town called monsanto in illinois now known as sauget . it was formed to provide minimal regulation and low taxes for the monsanto chemical plants at a time when local jurisdictions had most of the responsibility for environmental rules . it was renamed in honor of leo sauget its first village president . 20 in 1935 monsanto bought the swann chemical company in anniston alabama and thereby entered the business of producing pcbs on an industrial scale . 21 22 23 in 1936 monsanto acquired thomas & hochwalt laboratories in dayton ohio to acquire the expertise of charles allen thomas and dr. carroll a. ted hochwalt . the acquisition was subsequently made monsanto s central research department . 24 340 341 thomas spent the rest of his career at monsanto serving as president 1951 60 and chairman of the board 1960 65 . he retired in 1970 . 25 in 1943 thomas was called to a meeting in washington dc with brig. gen. leslie groves commander of the manhattan project and with james conant president of harvard university and chairman of the national defense research committee ndrc . 26 they urged thomas to become co director of the manhattan project at los alamos with robert oppenheimer but thomas was reluctant to leave dayton and monsanto . 26 thomas joined the ndrc and monsanto s central research department began to conduct research for the manhattan project under contract from the us government . 27 vii to that end monsanto operated the dayton project and later mound laboratories and assisted in the development of the first nuclear weapons . 26 post war period edit in 1946 monsanto developed and marketed all laundry detergent until they sold the product line to lever brothers in 1957 . 28 in 1947 its styrene factory was destroyed in the texas city disaster . 29 in 1949 monsanto acquired american viscose from england s family business courtaulds . in 1954 monsanto partnered with german chemical giant bayer to form mobay and market polyurethanes in the united states . 30 monsanto began manufacturing ddt in 1944 along with some 15 other companies . 31 this insecticide was much welcomed in the fight against malaria transmitting mosquitoes . due to ddt s toxicity its use in the united states was banned in 1972 . in 1977 monsanto stopped producing pcbs ; the united states congress banned domestic pcb production two years later . 32 33 1960s and 1970s edit in the mid 1960s william standish knowles and his team invented a way to selectively synthesize enantiomers via asymmetric hydrogenation . this was an important advancement because it was the first method for the catalytic production of pure chiral compounds . 34 using this method knowles team designed the first industrial process to chirally synthesize an important compound l dopa which is currently the main drug used to treat parkinson s disease . 35 in 2001 knowles and ry ji noyori won the nobel prize in chemistry . in the mid 1960s chemists at monsanto developed the monsanto process for making acetic acid which until 2000 was the method most widely used to make this important industrial chemical . in 1964 monsanto chemists invented astroturf but called it chemgrass early on 36 which the company then commercialized . in the 1960s and 1970s monsanto was one of the most important producers of agent orange for united states armed forces operations in vietnam . 37 6 in 1968 it became the first company to start mass production of visible light emitting diodes leds using gallium arsenide phosphide . this ushered in the era of solid state lights . from 1968 to 1970 sales doubled every few months . their products discrete leds and seven segment numeric displays became the standards of industry . the primary markets then were electronic calculators digital watches and digital clocks . 38 monsanto was a pioneer of optoelectronics in the 1970s . between 1968 and 1974 the company assumed title sponsorship of the pga tour event in pensacola fla. that was renamed the monsanto open . notable winners included world golf hall of fame member gene littler in 1971 . in 1974 harvard university and monsanto signed a 10 year industrial funded research grant to support the cancer research of judah folkman which at that time was the largest such arrangement ever made ; medical inventions arising from that research were the first for which harvard allowed its faculty to submit a patent application . 39 40 in 1979 monsanto established the edgar monsanto queeny safety award in honor of its former ceo 1928 1960 an annual 2 000 prize given to a member of the american society of safety engineers to encourage accident prevention . 41 1980s to early 1990s emphasis on agribiotech edit monsanto scientists were among the first to genetically modify a plant cell publishing their results in 1983 ; 5 five years later the company conducted the first field tests of genetically engineered crops . increasing involvement in agricultural biotechnology r & d in general dates from the installment of richard mahoney as monsanto s ceo in 1983 . 14 this involvement increased under the leadership of robert shapiro appointed ceo in 1995 leading ultimately to divestment of product lines unrelated to agriculture . 14 in 1985 monsanto acquired g. d. searle & company a life sciences company focusing on pharmaceuticals agriculture and animal health . in 1993 monsanto s searle division filed a patent application for celebrex 42 43 which in 1998 became the first selective cox 2 inhibitor to be approved by the u.s. food and drug administration fda . 44 celebrex became a blockbuster drug and was often mentioned as a key reason for pfizer s acquisition of monsanto s pharmaceutical business in 2002 . 45 in 1994 monsanto introduced a recombinant version of bovine somatotropin brand named posilac . 46 monsanto later sold this business to eli lilly and company . 1996 to present growth into world s largest grossing seed company edit in 1996 monsanto purchased agracetus the biotechnology company that had generated the first transgenic varieties of cotton soybeans peanuts and other crops and from which monsanto had already been licensing technology since 1991 . 47 monsanto first entered the maize seed business when it purchased 40 % of dekalb in 1996 ; it purchased the remainder of the corporation in 1998 . 48 in 1998 monsanto purchased cargill s international seed business which gave it access to sales and distribution facilities in 51 countries . 48 in 2005 it finalized the purchase of seminis inc a leading global vegetable and fruit seed company for 1.4 billion . 49 this made it the world s largest conventional seed company at the time . in 2007 monsanto and basf announced a long term agreement to cooperate in the research development and marketing of new plant biotechnology products . 50 51 in 2015 monsanto was the biggest supplier of seeds in the world with a 26 % share of the global seed market du pont was second with a 21 % share . 52