Monsanto, BP, Ethics
Monsanto:
Q1. Does Monsanto maintain an ethical culture than can effectively respond to various stakeholders?
I believe Monsanto makes an effort to have an ethical culture and for the most part they succeed. The bribery issues in Indonesia, within their own company, in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s were reported to the Department of Justice by Monsanto. This level of corporate governance is something I think many large corporations would not do.
The farmers, who are primary stakeholders because they buy seed from Monsanto get a lot of attention from Monsanto. The development of new seed allows farmers to grow more crops per acre with less chance of crop loss due to weeds, disease or insect damage.
They effectively responded to consumers by shifting focus of genetically modified corn to corn that is not directly eaten by consumers, but put to use in other ways (feed corn, ethanol, corn syrup, etc)
Q2. Compare the benefits of growing GM seeds with the potential negative consequences of using them.
In a time where it is very popular to eat organic, with more and more organic choices than ever, the issue of GM food is an interesting one. For those of us who live in a relatively stable economic environment, the need for GM food seems a little wrong. But the facts are that the world population is growing and since about 1999, the world wide farmland acreage has decreased every year, something had never happened before and shows no sign of turning around. BASF reports the following concerning population and available farmland:
Furthermore, the world population is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. It rose from 3.0 billion in 1960 to 6.5 billion in 2005 – and by 2030 there will be approximately 8.3 billion people living on our planet. Supplying these people with food constitutes a growing challenge. To make things even more difficult, whilst the need for food is increasing, the amount of available farmland per capita is continually shrinking. In 2005, there was
Q1. Does Monsanto maintain an ethical culture than can effectively respond to various stakeholders?
I believe Monsanto makes an effort to have an ethical culture and for the most part they succeed. The bribery issues in Indonesia, within their own company, in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s were reported to the Department of Justice by Monsanto. This level of corporate governance is something I think many large corporations would not do.
The farmers, who are primary stakeholders because they buy seed from Monsanto get a lot of attention from Monsanto. The development of new seed allows farmers to grow more crops per acre with less chance of crop loss due to weeds, disease or insect damage.
They effectively responded to consumers by shifting focus of genetically modified corn to corn that is not directly eaten by consumers, but put to use in other ways (feed corn, ethanol, corn syrup, etc)
Q2. Compare the benefits of growing GM seeds with the potential negative consequences of using them.
In a time where it is very popular to eat organic, with more and more organic choices than ever, the issue of GM food is an interesting one. For those of us who live in a relatively stable economic environment, the need for GM food seems a little wrong. But the facts are that the world population is growing and since about 1999, the world wide farmland acreage has decreased every year, something had never happened before and shows no sign of turning around. BASF reports the following concerning population and available farmland:
Furthermore, the world population is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. It rose from 3.0 billion in 1960 to 6.5 billion in 2005 – and by 2030 there will be approximately 8.3 billion people living on our planet. Supplying these people with food constitutes a growing challenge. To make things even more difficult, whilst the need for food is increasing, the amount of available farmland per capita is continually shrinking. In 2005, there was