{"id":19226,"date":"2016-03-28T12:33:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T17:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19226"},"modified":"2016-03-28T12:33:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T17:33:55","slug":"monsanto-losing-its-grip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19226","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto Losing Its Grip?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2016\/03\/27\/is-monsanto-losing-its-grip\/\" target=\"_blank\">Monsanto Losing Its Grip?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>The earnings warning was just a precursor.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Monsanto, the world\u2019s largest seed manufacturer, is not having a good year. The company recently slashed its 2016 earnings forecast from the $5.10-$5.60 per share it had forecast in December to $4.40-$5.10, claiming that about 25-30 cents of the reduction was due to the stronger dollar. But judging by recent trends, a strong dollar could soon be the least of its concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Across a number of key markets, the company is facing growing resistance, not only from farmers and consumers but also, amazingly, governments.<\/p>\n<p>In India, the world\u2019s biggest cotton producer, the Ministry of Agriculture accuses Monsanto of price gouging. It even imposed a 70% cut in the royalties that the firm\u2019s Indian subsidiary could charge farmers for their crop genes, prompting Monsanto to threaten that it would withdraw its biotech crop genes from the country.<\/p>\n<p>If Monsanto\u2019s threat was a bluff,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindubusinessline.com\/economy\/agri-business\/royalty-row-private-public-sector-cos-set-to-come-up-with-alternatives-to-bt-cotton\/article8396963.ece\" target=\"_blank\">it\u2019s just been called<\/a>. According to Mandava Prabhakara Rao, the president of the National Seed Association of India (NSAI), Monsanto\u2019s threat came as a big relief:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>All these years, the company has restrained us from using technologies other than the one developed by it. It forced the seed firms to sign the licence agreements that barred them from using other technologies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>India\u2019s government also seems unconcerned by the prospect of Monsanto\u2019s withdrawal.\u201cIt\u2019s now up to Monsanto to decide whether they want to accept this rate or not,\u201d said Minister of state for agriculture and food processing, Sanjeev Balyan. \u201cWe\u2019re not scared if Monsanto leaves the country, because our team of scientists are working to develop (an) indigenous variety of (GM) seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s pushback against Monsanto is part of a gathering global backlash against\u00a0Monsanto and the GMO industry as a whole. Even in the U.S., where GMOs are estimated to represent more than 90% of corn, soybean, and cotton acres, the trend is no longer Monsanto\u2019s friend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monsanto Losing Its Grip? The earnings warning was just a precursor. Monsanto, the world\u2019s largest seed manufacturer, is not having a good year. The company recently slashed its 2016 earnings forecast from the $5.10-$5.60 per share it had forecast in December to $4.40-$5.10, claiming that about 25-30 cents of the reduction was due to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5660,4130,372,13133,4131,1166,839,4255],"class_list":["post-19226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-don-quijones","tag-genetically-modified-organism","tag-gmo","tag-indian-ministry-of-agriculture","tag-monsanto","tag-seeds","tag-us-dollar","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19227,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19226\/revisions\/19227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}