the corporate shaping of gm crops as a technology for the poor

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The corporate shaping of GM crops as atechnology for the poorDominic GloverPublished online: 22 Jan 2010.

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The corporate shaping of GM crops as a technology for the poor

Dominic Glover

Genetically modied (GM, transgenic) crops are often invoked in debates aboutpoverty, hunger, and agricultural development. The framing of GM crops as apro-poor and environmentally sustainable technology was partly a creation ofthe biotechnology industry, but cannot be explained as merely a cynical exercisein public relations. Storylines about poverty alleviation and sustainabledevelopment actually helped to drive and shape the technical and commercialstrategies of the leading transnational agribusiness company, Monsanto, duringthe 1970s, 80s and 90s. However, while those storylines emerged alongside theGM crop technologies that were being developed in the companys laboratoriesand greenhouses, they failed to inuence their design or technological content.Nevertheless, the pro-poor and sustainability rhetoric contributed directly to atransformation of Monsantos sectoral and geographical scope, to include a newfocus on markets in developing countries. In principle, serving farmers in thesemarkets could lead the company to develop new products and technologies thatare designed to address the needs of resource-poor smallholders, but the evidenceof such a change occurring is scant.

Keywords: Monsanto; GM crops; biotechnology; agriculture; narrative

A visitor from another planet eavesdropping on defenders of genetic engineering duringthe summer of 2000 might have come to the conclusion that it was a technologydeveloped mainly to feed the worlds poor and malnourished.

Daniel Charles (2001), Lords of the Harvest

Introduction

It is rare to nd a public statement about genetically modied (GM, transgenic)crops by a policy maker, politician, scientist, journalist, or commentator which doesnot, at some point, usually quite prominently, cite the technologys potential benetsfor poor, hungry, and malnourished people in the developing world. Thesepurported advantages are constantly invoked as a way of attacking the anti-GMcampaigners who are accused of impeding the technologys smooth deployment indeveloping countries (e.g. Collier 2008, Herring 2008, Paarlberg 2008). The notionthat GM crops are somehow intrinsically pro-poor has, according to someobservers, attained the status of an optimistic but cautious consensus among

I thank Ian Scoones, Erik Millstone, Les Levidow, Bill Vorley, Melissa Leach, Jun Borras, andtwo anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of thispaper. I would also like to acknowledge the nancial support of the UKs Economic andSocial Research Council and the CERES-Wageningen research school, which funded the workon which this paper is based.

The Journal of Peasant Studies

Vol. 37, No. 1, January 2010, 6790

ISSN 0306-6150 print/ISSN 1743-9361 online

2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/03066150903498754

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development professionals (Herring 2007, 7). Many of those lining up behind thisconsensus position portray their support for GM crops as a neutral, dispassionate,and rational position which transcends the contentious and politically chargeddisputes that surround agricultural biotechnology (Jansen and Gupta 2009).

The wide diusion and apparent entrenchment of the pro-poor GM cropsstoryline is a remarkable phenomenon in its own right, since it is hard to agree thatGM crops have convincingly demonstrated their pro-poor credentials or that theconstant repetition of pro-poor claims has done anything to defuse the intensity ofthe controversy over genetic modication in agriculture and food. The great majorityof the transgenic crop varieties currently available on the market are widelyacknowledged to have been developed for the large-scale, industrialised farmingsystems in the global North. Careful evaluations of their impacts in developingcountries have revealed a decidedly mixed picture, especially at farm level (Glover2009, Raney 2006, Smale et al. 2006a, 2006b, 2009). The experts involved in therecent International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Techno-logy for Development (IAASTD) concluded that GM technology can play only aminor role in addressing the challenges of agricultural development in the globalSouth (IAASTD 2008, Scoones 2009).1 Meanwhile, there is little evidence of adecisive softening of opposition to GM technology on the part of consumers,environmentalists, and development activists (Paarlberg 2008).

Where did the narrative framing of transgenic crops as a pro-poor, develop-mental technology come from? Many opponents of GM agriculture assume that thepro-poor rhetoric is merely an exercise in cynical public relations or greenwash, rstgenerated by the biotechnology industry in the late 1990s as a response to the publicand consumer backlash against GM crop technology that erupted in Europe andelsewhere at that time. The biotechnology industry has certainly been a vocalproponent of the narrative, using sophisticated marketing and public relationscampaigns to promote favourable attitudes towards GM technology (Glover 2007b,Kleinman and Kloppenburg 1991). However, it is a mistake to assume that thediscourse is nothing more than greenwash or that the biotechnology industryconjured up its pro-poor rhetoric from nowhere in the late 1990s. In fact, visions oftechnological promise have been part of the package of modern biotechnology fromthe beginning, alongside concerns about potential risks (Bud 1993, Wright 1994).However, as this paper will demonstrate, the idea of transgenic crops as anintrinsically sustainable and developmental technology played a specic, vital role indriving and shaping the technological and commercial strategy of the US-basedtransnational agribusiness and biotechnology company Monsanto during the 1970s,80s, and 90s. Monsanto is of particular interest because it was the pioneer ofcommercial transgenic crops and remains one of the biggest players in agriculturalbiotechnology, with a remarkably dominant position in the market (ETC Group2005, Glover 2007c). This paper will help to explain why the conceptual framing ofGM crops as an intrinsically pro-poor technology emerged in tandem with a range ofcommercial transgenic crop traits that were not actually designed to address theneeds of the developing world. The analysis will thus help to explain why pro-poorGM crops rhetoric is so politically contentious, and so indicate how important it isthat policy makers should strive to separate the substantive content and impacts of

1See www.agassessment.org [Accessed 12 September 2008].

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specic GM crop applications from the simplistic assumptions about pro-poorimpacts to which they are so often attached.

Things could have turned out dierently

Howard Schneiderman was Monsantos chief scientist and senior vice president forresearch and development (R&D) during the 1980s. Not long before his prematuredeath from leukaemia in December 1990, while still employed by the company,Schneiderman and another senior Monsanto colleague completed an article aboutagricultural genetic engineering for the journal Environmental Science andTechnology (Schneiderman and Carpenter 1990). To anyone familiar withMonsantos status as biotechnology bogeyman to the anti-GM lobby, it is a rathersurprising piece. Although it explicitly linked crop genetic engineering to the struggleto feed the world, combat malnourishment, and stem the advance of environmentaldegradation, it did not make any inated claims for GM crops as if they might be asilver bullet against hunger and poverty. Instead, the authors frankly acknowledgedthat the kinds of solutions appropriate for intensive, large-scale farming would notwork in the insecure situations facing poor farmers in the developing world. Theyrecognised the need for an indigenous, sustainable agriculture that preserves soilfertility. They lamented the fact that national agricultural policies favor the spreadof capitalized, monocultural cash-cropping and extensive ranching (1990, 470).They also reviewed some specic potential applications of GM crop technology thatmight be relevant for developing-country agriculture, such as the introduction oftraits like disease resistance and improved protein content to subsistence crops likecassava, sorghum, millet, and taro, and the development of crop varieties that wouldbe suitable for intercropping. They explicitly acknowledged that GM technologycould not be a quick technology x (1990, 470).

By contrast, Monsantos contemporary marketing strategy, in the developing asin the developed world, revolves around the promotion of standardised, scienticallydened high-technology packages that centre on a few cash crops, especiallytransgenic cotton and maize and conventional hybrid maize. Only two GM traits herbicide tolerance and insect-resistance have reached the market (incidentally fortechnical and practical reasons, not merely because GM crop development issupposedly being retarded by public resistance and onerous regulation, ascommentators like Paarlberg [2008] and Collier [2008] have complained).2 Insteadof adapting the technology to suit the farmers requirements, Monsanto expects thatsmallholder farmers will change, using Monsantos seed and herbicide inputs tomake the transition to a more commercially oriented agriculture (Glover 2007a,2007c).

How did the (publicly espoused) aspirations of senior Monsanto managers likeHoward Schneiderman come to be translated into a monochromatic corporate focuson just a handful of crops, two basic traits, and the promotion of a standardisedpackage of practices for each crop and trait combination? The remainder of thispaper will explain how expectations about the pro-poor promise of sustainable GMcrop technology began to diverge from the specic types of GM crops that wereactually developed and commercially released by Monsanto.

2See e.g. Brooks (2008).

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Monsanto and the emergence of GM crop technology

During the 1990s, Monsanto was transformed radically, from a major chemicals andpharmaceuticals conglomerate into an agri-business and biotechnology giant.However, when the company had rst ventured into the edgling biotechnologysector in the early 1970s, it had done so very tentatively and speculatively. Over atwenty-year period, Monsantos senior executives remained highly unclear aboutwhere their investments in biotechnology would lead. To understand how theirinitially cautious and hesitant entry into the sector ultimately led them to transformthe structure of the company, it is necessary to trace the highly specic andcontingent sequence of decisions and processes that guided their progress. Theanalysis will help to explain how and why, in the process, GM crops came to bedepicted as a technology for the poor.

It is useful to understand strategy as a pattern of activities or crystallisation ofpurpose that emerges from action, rather than an orderly and coherent process ofplanning-in-advance (Mintzberg 1978). A key role played by corporate managers isto make sense out of the complex and often confusing ow of activities in which theircompany is engaged, thus giving their actions and decisions the appearance ofmeaning, purpose, coherence, continuity and control. Thus, what we call strategycan usefully be understood as a kind of management discourse, designed to convinceemployees and other corporate stakeholders that someone is in charge and isfollowing a coherent plan (Araujo and Easton 1996). The discursive nature ofstrategy is seen very clearly in situations where managers try to instigate majorchange, when they invoke storylines, narratives or vivid metaphors in order torationalise their decisions and enrol colleagues and other stakeholders (Dunford andJones 2000, Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991, Hardy et al. 2000, Hill and Levenhagen1995).

The uncertainty that managers face is particularly acute in the context of radicalinnovation and major technological change (MacKenzie 1992, 1996). In the face ofsuch profound change, corporate managers are confronted with acute uncertaintyabout outcomes, yet they still need to make decisions. Such was the situation facingMonsantos senior executives in the 1970s. The air was full of speculations about therevolutionary potential of genetic modication, but nobody was in a position topredict precisely what kinds of products, markets, or socio-technical systems mightemerge in practice; those structures were still to be created.

Monsantos venture into agricultural biotechnology remained a ratheruncertain enterprise throughout the 1970s and 1980s. According to the companyschief executive ocer (CEO) from 1984 to 1995, Richard (Dick) Mahoney, [w]edidnt have a good business plan on how to make money out of this stu(quoted in Hertz et al. 2001, 11); the discussion of how we were going to makemoney in agricultural biotechnology went on into the 1990s (quoted in Charles2001, 109). Through a protracted process of discussion, debate, and story-telling,as well as concrete decisions and actions, Monsantos managers strove to workout which strategic direction the company should go in. Their strategy forbiotechnology is therefore best understood as having emerged through a sequenceof uncertain, contingent steps and missteps, which eventually coalesced into amore coherent strategy.

Nevertheless, it is important to stress that the Monsanto managers postureduring this period was hardly passive or reactive. They were actively searching within

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biotechnology for commercial opportunities and attempting to put their company ina position to exploit them. The task before them entailed the construction of afunctioning socio-technical system, in which the opportunities opened up bybiotechnology would be aligned with Monsantos commercial interests and itstechnical, productive, and marketing capacities. For the construction of thisnetwork, the company would need to enrol people, such as investors and potentialcustomers, and assemble disparate assets, including know-how, money, patents,laboratories, tools and equipment, regulations, and so on (Bijker et al. 1987, Callon1987, 1992, Law and Callon 1992). A key way to attract and align the necessarysupport would be to depict the products emerging from Monsantos laboratories andgreenhouses as the solution to a recognised problem or a necessary step on the wayto a desired goal (Callon 1987, 1992, Law and Callon 1992). Success in thisendeavour would increase the likelihood that Monsanto could create a successfulbusiness model out of the new technology. This kind of market-shaping activity bycompanies has been documented in both medical and food biotechnology (Green1991, 1992, Walsh 2002).

Monsantos managers embarked on a concerted eort to depict GM crops andMonsanto as their chief provider as an essential tool for addressing criticallyimportant future challenges in hunger, environmental sustainability, and interna-tional development. It is important to note that these altruistic goals were notMonsantos own. Instead, they served as vital goals for humanity as a whole. In thisway, Monsantos leadership team aimed to convince both employees and investorsthat the company would be a provider of indispensable products and services infuture markets for agricultural technology.

Meanwhile, however, Monsantos concrete activities in biotechnology wereshaped by a number of rather basic factors that had no direct connection withsustainability or poverty alleviation in the developing world. I will briey discuss thekey drivers in turn.

. Maturation of the chemicals industryDuring the 1970s, Monsantos top decision-makers, like others in their sector,were coming to terms with the perception that the chemicals industry wasbecoming a mature, cyclical business, heavily dependent on the uctuating costs ofraw materials. As a petro-chemicals business, Monsanto was especially vulnerableto the rising price of oil at that time (Klausner 1986). Monsanto executives knewthat this would increasingly be the kind of sector where products were likely tobecome increasingly generic, adding value would be dicult, prot margins wouldbe slim, and a distinct competitive advantage would be hard to attain and defend(Monsanto 1981, 3). In agriculture, moreover, Monsantos scientists werebecoming convinced that the scope for new approaches to crop-managementbased on chemistry were limited (Resetar et al. 1999). Reecting this concernabout the implications of being trapped in a sunset industry, HowardSchneiderman told Business Week magazine: To maintain our markets andnot become another steel industry we must spend on research anddevelopment.3

3Quoted in Hoovers company prole, reproduced at http://www.answers.com/topic/monsanto-company?catbiz-n [Accessed 3 June 2008].


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. Environmental liabilitiesDuring the 1960s and 1970s, Monsantos business was increasingly threatened bythe emergence of the environmental movement and the enactment of tougherenvironmental regulations. Monsanto was a major producer of both dioxins andpolychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) both persistent environmental pollutantsposing serious risks to the environment and human health. Law suits andenvironmental clean-up costs began to cut into Monsantos bottom line. Therewas a real fear that a serious lapse could potentially bankrupt the company (Hertzet al. 2001).4

In response to these concerns, Monsanto embarked on a number of waste- andemissions-reduction initiatives during the 1980s, but by the early 1990s this end-of-pipe approach to pollution-prevention and emissions-reduction was runningout of steam (Resetar et al. 1999, Sastry et al. 2002). Senior executives werebecoming convinced that Monsantos long-term viability would have to dependmuch less heavily on chemicals (Hertz et al. 2001).

. Roundup5 herbicideMonsanto launched a new herbicide called Roundup (glyphosate) in 1976. Thechemical was a runaway commercial success. It soon became Monsantos mostprotable brand and the single most important product of the agriculture division,which contributed about 45 percent of operating income to the companys balancesheet each year during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, glyphosate remainsthe worlds best-selling herbicide (Glover 2007c, Woodburn 2000).Such a blockbuster product uncorks a fountain of revenue, but also creates anuncomfortable dependency on the commercial fortunes of a single brand.Monsantos management knew that the last of the patents protecting Roundupin the United States its biggest market would expire in the year 2000. With theeld thus opened to potential competitors, the company urgently needed a strategyto prolong the useful life of its cash cow (Barboza 2001, Hertz et al. 2001,McDonald 2001).

. Developments in biotechnologyThe prospect of using genetic engineering to improve plants, animals, and evenhumans had been anticipated long in advance of the 1973 breakthrough by StanleyCohen and Herbert Boyer, who rst successfully transferred a section of DNA6

from one bacterium to another. Scientists and industrialists quickly began toexplore commercial applications of the new technology (Bud 1993, Wright 1994).Monsanto was just one of many companies monitoring developments in the eld,and preparing to take advantage of any breakthroughs that might emerge (Charles2001, Wright 1994).

. Regulatory frameworks for intellectual propertyTwo key changes in the regulation of intellectual property rights in the UnitedStates helped to create a much more favourable environment for the commercialexploitation of biotechnology, while steering the emerging industry stronglytowards genetic modication. The most important of these changes came in the

4In fact, liability for PCB contamination at a former Monsanto plant in the southern US stateof Georgia did eventually lead to the bankruptcy of Monsantos industrial chemicals division,Solutia, in December 2003 (Hoovers company prole reproduced at http://www.answers.com/topic/monsanto-company?catbiz-n [Accessed 3 June 2008]).5Roundup is a registered brand name of the Monsanto Company.6Deoxyribonucleic acid.

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form of new rulings from the US Supreme Court in two key judgements handeddown in 1980 and 1988, in which the court allowed transgenic life-forms to bepatented. In particular, the famous case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980)unleashed a frenzy of investment interest in the commercial potential of the newtechnology (Bud 1993, Charles 2001, Wright 1994).The second key change came in the form of the BayhDole Act of 1980, a piece

of legislation that enabled US universities to own intellectual property that wascreated through research projects that were funded by the US federal government.This enabled universities to license their intellectual property to the private sectorfor commercial exploitation and created greater incentives for universities andcompanies to collaborate with one another (Bradford 2005).

Each of these factors played a vital role in shaping and driving Monsantos technicaland commercial strategy for biotechnology. For instance, just two years after Cohenand Boyers breakthrough in creating a transgenic organism, Monsanto establishedits cell biology research programme. The head of the programme, Ernest (Ernie)Jaworski, made himself a xture at scientic conferences (Charles 2001, 9) and kepta close eye on scientic developments, cultivating relationships with leadingmicrobiologists. Monsanto personnel became frequent visitors to the biotechnologylabs at their local higher education institution, Washington University in St Louis(WUSTL) (Charles 2001, Wright 1994).

Some of the consequences of the BayhDole Act and the Supreme Court ruling inDiamond v. Chakrabarty can be seen in the scaling up of Monsantos biotechresearch in the early 1980s. In 1979, Monsanto enticed Howard Schneiderman fromthe University of California, Irvine with the prospect of a US$275m budget to leadthe companys research programme. Within a few months, Schneiderman andJaworski recruited a team of scientists to spearhead Monsantos R&D on geneticmodication, including three men who would enable Monsanto to be among the rstto successfully transform a plant, in 1982:7 Steve Rogers, Robert (Robb) Fraley, andRobert (Rob) Horsch. Monsanto opened a state-of-the-art, multi-million dollarmolecular biology research facility in St Louis in October 1981 (Monsanto 1981).Schneiderman also negotiated major collaborative research agreements withresearchers at WUSTL, Harvard, and Oxford Universities and nanced otherresearch at Rockefeller University, the California Institute of Technology, and theUniversity of California, San Francisco. Monsanto managers considered theseprogrammes to be as valuable for the interaction that they enabled between companyscientists and their academic colleagues as for the particular products that mightemerge (Klausner 1986). Over the years these collaborations, alongside others withvarious biotechnology start-up companies, helped Monsanto to build a competitivelead in GM crop technology (Schneider 1990, Charles 2001, Culliton 1990, Hertzet al. 2001).

The revenues generated by Roundup were vital in enabling Monsanto to boostits R&D investments substantially from the mid-1980s onwards. In his rst year incharge, chief executive Dick Mahoney increased spending on agricultural R&D toabout eight per cent of sales, of which biotechnology was a major research priority(Monsanto 1984). Meanwhile, R&D in the chemicals division remained relatively

7The breakthrough was announced in January 1983.


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at. Such a high rate of spending demanded a signicant eort by the chiefexecutive to justify it to investors and shareholders (Hertz et al. 2001, Resetar et al.1999).

The disparity between spending on chemicals and biotechnology R&D reectedthe maturity of the chemicals sector as well as the managements steadilyincreasing conviction that shifting away from chemistry to biotechnology inagriculture would be vital for the companys future. The chemicals division waseventually sold in September 1997. That spin-o indicated a major departure forMonsanto, since the division could be regarded as the historical core of thecompany, which contributed almost US$3.7bn out of nearly US$9bn in annualsales in 1995 (Monsanto 1995).

However, the process that culminated in Monsantos transformation into a lifescience company, with an agriculture strategy increasingly centred aroundbiotechnology, was by no means smooth or seamless. Disagreements within thecompany, between the formerly unchallenged chemicals camp and the supporters ofthe emerging biotechnology, were a source of tension and conict over a number ofyears (Charles 2001, Resetar et al. 1999, Sastry et al. 2002, 286, n.3). It mattered thatDick Mahoney was willing to stake so much on the future of biotechnology, despitenot being sure where it would lead. Until 1985, Monsantos biotechnology researcheort was divided between the companys central corporate R&D programme, whichwas led by Schneiderman and populated by other newcomers to the rm like Rogers,Fraley, and Horsch, and the agriculture division, where R&D was dominated byMonsanto veterans who had backgrounds in chemistry. At the end of 1985, in theaftermath of an expensive acquisition that created pressure to cut costs, Mahoneyforcibly combined the two programmes. Dozens of researchers were red, most ofthem chemists (Charles 2001, Klausner 1986).

In this way, the biotechnology advocates ultimately came to include most of thekey senior executives in the company, which helps to explain why their argumentseventually prevailed. Monsanto advertising and public relations campaignmaterials from the mid-1980s began to depict the rise of biotechnology as aninevitable, irresistible development, with Monsanto in the vanguard (Kleinman andKloppenburg 1991). But how did that view become part of the common sense amongthe companys senior executives? Exploring the process by which Monsantos leadersconvinced themselves, their colleagues, and investors to follow the biotechnologypath helps to explain how, as an intrinsic part of its production, biotechnology cameto be depicted, by many actors within the company as well as by the company as awhole to people outside it, as a technology that had something to do with attainingagricultural sustainability and feeding the world.

Assurances of continuity give way to narratives of revolutionary change

In the early days of its big biotech adventure, Monsanto stressed the basic continuityof its biotechnology research programme with its existing competence in chemistry,as in this extract from the 1981 annual report:

The Company has also increased its eorts in biotechnology which has emerged asa valuable complement to Monsantos chemical technology. Biotechnology oersnovel ways for Monsanto to manipulate molecules. And, manipulating moleculeshas been and continues to be the basis of Monsantos chemical businesses. (Monsanto1981, 6)

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The implication that biotechnology represented a natural evolution ofMonsantos chemicals business no doubt helped to soothe the anxieties of chemistswithin the rm. Nevertheless, in the same annual report, the company also stressedthe rst inklings of much more revolutionary possibilities. The document anticipatedthe prospect of inserting valuable new traits into crops, such as insect and diseaseresistance, and discussed using this technology to feed a hungry world (Monsanto1981, 7).

Still, many people inside the company questioned the merits of the biotechnologyresearch programme. Tangible results were slow to emerge, and those involved withthe programme came under increasing pressure to justify their work. Robb Fraley,for instance, is said to have hyped the potential of GM crops as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Monsanto to dominate a whole new industry, invokingMicrosoft and the market for personal computers and software as a powerfulanalogy (Charles 2001). But the nebulousness of that grandiose ambition did nothave sucient traction on its own.

The more down-to-earth argument that really convinced most colleagues wasthat genetic engineering oered the best prospect of preserving the commercial life ofRoundup. Glyphosate began life as a non-selective weedkiller. While it killed more orless any growing plant, it was considered non-toxic to humans or animals and brokedown easily in soil through the eects of rain and sunshine. This meant that farmerscould apply Roundup to their elds before planting, and sow their crop very soonafterwards, often without having to plough the ground rst (a practice known asconservation tillage, sometimes minimum tillage, zero-tillage, con-till, or no-till) (Charles 2001, Woodburn 2000).8

In the early 1980s, Monsanto scientists had noticed that certain bacteriainhabiting the waste outows from the companys glyphosate manufacturing plantswere impervious to the chemical. Ernie Jaworski and some of his colleagues reasonedthat, if they could introduce the genes responsible for this resistance to glyphosateinto crop plants, farmers would then be able to spray Roundup onto their elds evenduring the growing season, killing unwanted weeds without harming the crop. Thiswould signicantly expand the market for Roundup and, more importantly, helpMonsanto to negotiate the expiry of its glyphosate patents. With glyphosate-tolerantGM crops, Monsanto would be able to preserve its dominance of the glyphosatemarket through a marketing strategy that would couple proprietary Roundup-readyseeds, priced at a level high enough to recoup the companys substantial investmentin R&D, with continued sales of Roundup, priced low enough to undercut potentialcompetition from generic glyphosate (Charles 2001, McDonald 2001).9

Monsantos heritage of agricultural chemicals thus had a profound impact on therst generation of products that emerged from its biotechnology researchprogramme. This was an uncomfortable fact for many of the so-called genejockeys in the rm, who regarded GM as a clean, green technology that wouldtranscend the grubby and harmful chemical paradigm in agriculture. For instance,Robb Fraley is said to have exclaimed, If all we can do [with biotechnology] is sellmore damned herbicide, we shouldnt be in this business (Charles 2001, 60,parenthesis in original). Yet, it was Fraleys own team, under pressure to deliver

8Interview, Monsanto research scientist, St Louis, 24 June 2005.9Monsanto, The Road to Roundup Ready1 Crops (http://www.monsanto.com/features/road_to_roundup.asp [Accessed 2 June 2008]).


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a commercial product at long last, which set to work on the development of the rstgeneration of Roundup Ready10 crops (Charles 2001). According to one member ofFraleys team, they eventually zeroed in on the Roundup Ready trait because [t]hiswas the one project that the administration of the company understood (quoted inCharles 2001, 67).

Monsantos particular institutional features also helped to ensure that insectresistance would be the other type of GM crop appearing in the rst generation.Apart from the fact that the introduction of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) geneproved to be technically straightforward, with the prospect of delivering a signicantcommercial product using a single gene, the fact that Monsantos strength layprimarily in herbicides rather than insecticides meant that GM insect-resistancetechnology opened up a new market segment without conicting with orundermining any signicant pesticide interest within the company.

Thus, Monsantos biotechnology strategy was clearly shaped by some basic,down-to-earth features of the companys particular institutional history andcontemporary circumstances, including its existing technologies and technologicalcapabilities, its competitive position and nancial pressures. Accordingly, thebiotechnology strategy evolved around the companys existing customer base oflarge-scale, commercial farmers in the industrialised world and crop-traitcombinations that were both technically feasible and commercially viable.Roundup Ready crops served as a bridge between the companys chemicalsheritage and its potential biotech future. One can therefore identify elements ofcommercial and technical continuity as well as discontinuity in what was oftenseen and portrayed as a radical shift from the chemicals paradigm to a biotechparadigm.

Nevertheless, Monsantos managers increasingly played down the language ofcontinuity in order to promote the companys thrust into genetic modication asa radical break with its past. Increasingly, they portrayed GM crop technology asa clean, green, and environmentally friendly alternative to, rather thancontinuation of, the chemical-dependent paradigm in farming. However, theimportance of this discursive framing was not merely rhetorical, because it helpedto shape the commercial-technical strategy itself. An important side-eect of thisdiscursive framing would be to foster a new attention towards, and a sharperfocus on, the potential market for GM crops among poor farmers in developingcountries.

Telling stories about GM technology

In order to justify its very heavy spending on R&D, Monsantos managers needed tostress the remarkable, revolutionary possibilities opened up by genetic engineering,emphasising the decline of the old chemicals paradigm and sketching the potentialadvantages of founding a new industrial sector. It is signicant that the corporatefunds for educating the public about biotechnology came directly from HowardSchneidermans R&D budget, which neatly illustrates how Monsantos GM croptechnologies and rhetoric about those same technologies were being produced intandem (Klausner 1986). Unusually, Monsanto invested substantial sums of moneyin an integrated marketing campaign, not to advertise specic Monsanto products

10Roundup Ready is a registered brand name of Monsanto Company.

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but to promote biotechnology itself. Pamphlets as well as television and printadvertisements depicted the technology as revolutionary, almost miraculous, andsimultaneously both natural and a scientic improvement upon nature (Kleinmanand Kloppenburg 1991).

In various arenas, corporate and public, Schneiderman, Fraley, and other seniorcolleagues conjured up the revolutionary potential of biotechnology using dramatic,inspirational rhetoric. In their accounts, genetic engineering was not merely a ratherhumdrum-sounding new technique for manipulating molecules or a more precisekind of plant breeding. It became the key to a much grander vision, which evokedhuman values and principles of profound importance, such as sustainability,environmental stewardship, and even civilisation itself.

By all accounts, Howard Schneiderman was a charismatic and passionateadvocate for biotechnology (Charles 2001, Gilbert 1994). During a speech in 1985,he identied biotechnology and genetic engineering as possibly the most signicantscientic and technological discovery ever made. Through biotechnology, saidSchneiderman, Humanity, using natures own methods, will have learned topersuade her to be a full partner in humanitys major enterprise civilization(Davidson 1985, 1282).

Schneidermans lieutenants, Robb Fraley and Rob Horsch both of whomattained very senior management roles during the 1990s also ventured into publicdiscussions about genetic modication. In doing so, they typically invoked thepotential benets of GM technology for agriculture in developing countries. Forinstance, Horsch (1993) described in some detail Monsantos collaboration with theUS Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Kenya AgriculturalResearch Institute (KARI) in a project to introduce a virus-resistance gene intosweet potatoes. In a later article, which focused primarily on technical descriptions ofdierent types of GM crop transformations, Horsch illustrated his discussion ofwork on virus resistance not a major commercial trait of interest to the biotechmultinationals with examples from Mexico and Costa Rica on potatoes andsquashes, respectively (Horsch 1995).

In 1992, Fraley touted genetic modication as a sustainable technology forincreasing agricultural productivity and providing developing countries with areadily accessible, economically viable means of addressing primary foodproduction needs in order to feed a growing global population (Fraley 1992, 40).Fraley conceded that GM technology could not be a quick x for global hunger,[b]ut it can help ensure a sustainable and adequate food supply (Fraley 1992, 42).He also indicated a role for the private sector in projects to transfer technology to thedeveloping world, citing another paper in the same journal issue; that article assesseda number of such projects, but actually cast doubt on whether tinkering withtechnologies developed in and for the developed world could really make a dierencein the developing world (Hodgson 1992). The fact that Fraley apparentlyacknowledged those points is a fascinating indication of the cognitive dissonanceopening up between the kinds of technologies Monsanto was actually developingand the companys claims about their relevance to the needs of farmers in thedeveloping world.

Another charismatic spokesperson for biotechnology was Robert (Bob) Shapiro,who took over from Dick Mahoney as Monsantos CEO in 1995. Shapiro, a relativenewcomer to Monsanto, is often described as a visionary leader, who motivated hiscolleagues with inspiring, emotional speeches at company retreats and sta meetings


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(Charles 2001, Chataway and Tait 2000).11 Under Shapiros leadership, Monsantoadopted the notorious tagline that reected his bold claims: Food * Health * Hope.12

Like Schneiderman, Shapiro saw the potential of biotechnology in dramatic terms.Soon after stepping down as Monsantos CEO in 1999, he told one interviewer,

the thing I would never have guessed about this job is that it gives you a chance to makea dierence in the world. When you go home at night and you talk to your family aboutwhat youre working on, it isnt like Gee, I designed a really cool paper clip today. Itsabout the earth, its about the environment, its about food. Its about health andnutrition. These are deep, ancient things for civilization, and they are for people. Atthat point, Shapiro stopped talking, because he was ghting back tears . . . (Specter2000, 64)

Shapiro described the sustainability challenge in millenarian terms, arguing that theearly twenty-rst century is going to see a struggle between information technologyand biotechnology on one hand and environmental degradation on the other(Shapiro 1998, 4). Unless humanity could meet the sustainability challenge, heforesaw a world of mass migrations and environmental degradation on anunimaginable scale. At best, it means the preservation of a few islands of privilegeand prosperity in a sea of misery and violence (Shapiro in Magretta 1997, 80).Through such cataclysmic visions, Shapiro sought to place Monsanto symbolicallyin the vanguard of mankinds struggle towards sustainability and the ght to addressthe global challenges surrounding population growth, hunger, poverty, andinequality. He dened the companys goals as help[ing] people around the worldlead longer, healthier lives, at costs they can aord, and without continuedenvironmental degradation (Monsanto 1997, 2).

In 1996, Monsanto established seven strategic teams to explore sustainabilityissues and assess their implications for the companys future. Two of these teamsconsidered the implications of global water and hunger issues, with a view toidentifying whether and how Monsanto might develop businesses in those areas(Magretta 1997, Resetar et al. 1999). In 1997, most of the sustainability work wasincorporated into a new Sustainable Development Business Sector (Resetar et al.1999, Simanis and Hart 2000). The Sustainability Sector included a SmallholderTeam, which was charged with developing products, services and partnerships tomeet the needs of rural, small-scale farmers in developing countries (Simanis andHart 2000, A7).

It is important to observe here that this corporate focus on emerging markets indeveloping countries was not stimulated only by Shapiros ideas about sustainability,insofar as they entailed certain logical implications with regard to poverty, hunger,and development. Monsantos engagement with the problems of developing-countryagriculture also emerged organically from its eorts to promote Roundup in thedeveloping world, which typically involved the promotion of the chemical as part ofa conservation tillage technology package.

Monsanto has been an energetic promoter of conservation tillage in a particularform that binds the concept tightly to Roundup. Beginning in the USA and Canadain the early 1980s, the company rapidly spread its message to countries in LatinAmerica, sub-Saharan Africa, South- and South-east Asia during the 1980s and

11Interview, Monsanto executive, by telephone, 15 August 2005.12Interview, Monsanto executive, by telephone, 15 August 2005.

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1990s (Glover 2008). Until the end of the 1980s, the companys promotion of theconcept was addressed primarily towards the larger-scale farmers who could aordthe necessary inputs. Beginning in the early 1990s, however, Monsanto began toprovide nancial and technical backing to projects run by Sasakawa Global 2000and Winrock International to promote no-till methods to resource poor, small-scalefarmers in Brazil and several sub-Saharan African countries (Ekboir 2003, Ekboiret al. 2002, Findlay and Hutchinson 1999, Fowler and Rockstrom 2001, Ito et al.2007).

One senior executive referred to the promotion of con-till to small farmers as therst practical translation of a corporate target known as the developing country (orcountries) goal.13 This goal, to transform agriculture in developing countries, wasadopted by Monsantos agriculture division in the early 1990s, when Robert Shapirowas its managing director.14 The goal was partly a commercial objective, but it alsocontained within it a notion of mak[ing] a contribution to transferring modernfarming technology to under-privileged small-scale farmers (Findlay and Hutch-inson 1999, 52).

Thus, the urry of activity around the issue of sustainability, launched byShapiro in April 1995, grew out of a history in which the company had alreadybegun to experiment with ways of penetrating smallholder markets in the developingworld. Nevertheless, even while all this work was going on, Shapiro candidlyadmitted that he did not know how helping people to break out of poverty could bemade to work as a business venture:

Its dicult, in the short term, guring out how I am going to make money dealing withpeople who dont have money, he said at one point. But in practice, the development ofagriculture at a village level is something that could make an enormous amount ofbusiness sense over time. (quoted in Charles 2001, 271)

Confessing to this degree of uncertainty is striking in view of Monsantos status as apublicly listed company. The strenuous eorts by Shapiro and his colleagues to sellthe life science and sustainability vision indicate the challenge, as well as theimportance, of persuading investors and shareholders to back such a venture.Accordingly, Monsanto vigorously promoted the new vision through its in-housemagazine15 and annual reports, as well as various public channels. A number ofarticles were published under Shapiros name, in addition to magazine interviewsand proles of the CEO (Magretta 1997, Scott 1996, Shapiro 1998, 1999). Reportersfrom business newspapers and magazines also began to discuss the changes underway at Monsanto, generally expressing their enthusiasm (Grant 1997, Jae 1998,Lenzner and Upbin 1997, The Economist 1997).

What changed?

What dierence did all of this rhetoric make to Monsantos activities? It is worthreiterating at this point that Monsantos managers purpose in invoking the broad

13Interview, Monsanto executive, St Louis, 20 June 2005.14Interview, Monsanto executive, St Louis, 20 June 2005.15An article entitled Fields of Promise: Monsanto and the Development of AgriculturalBiotechnology, written by independent consultant Karen Keeler Rogers, was published inMonsanto Magazine in two parts at the end of 1996 and beginning of 1997.


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goal of global sustainability was not to establish that goal as a target for thecompany itself. Instead, their aim was to nd ways of making viable businesses outof the opportunities that they expected to arise from the sustainability challenge.Therefore, sustainability was invoked as a way to convince the companys keystakeholders that Monsanto was on top of developments that were about to unfold,and that the products and services it was gearing up to produce would make thecompany an indispensable player in the years to come a safe bet for both nancialinvestors and employees.

However, as discussed above, the products emerging from Monsantos R&Dprogramme were primarily shaped by various technical, institutional, nancial, andcommercial factors that were not directly connected to sustainability and feeding theworld. Although many people within the company came to see Monsanto as apioneering life science business whose products contributed to sustainabledevelopment, food security, and poverty alleviation, all that had really changedwas essentially a question of framing a new way of looking at the same basicproducts rather than a transformation in the nature of the products themselves(Glover 2007c, Sastry et al. 2002, Vellema 2004). This view was even acknowledgedby one of the senior managers involved at the time.16 In the words of one of thecompanys critics:

As far as I can see, there has been little or no change. Whatever plans and products theyhad in their pipelines came right on through. I dont know of any new products thatcame about because of any environmental commitment, and the old underlyingdivisional culture of ramming products into the marketplace without consulting abroader stakeholder community about eects, values, science, and other potentialconcerns with the arrogance that entails remains intact. What exists now is acompany without clear leadership, with . . . a product line that is truly unnerving. (PaulHawken in van Gelder 1999)

Interestingly, this failure to fundamentally transform Monsantos essentialbusiness model bears remarkable similarities to the ineective transformation of theSwiss chemicals and agribusiness giant Ciba-Geigy17 into a sustainable agribusinessduring the 1980s and 1990s (Vorley 2004). The striking correspondence between thetwo cases suggests that the Monsanto case exemplies a more general problem. AsVorley and Keeney (1998, 208) have put it, the top-down visions foisted onemployees by born-again CEO environmentalists like Shapiro have proved to beinsucient to stimulate the fundamental transformation of a company into asustainable business.

At rst, however, nothing happened to disabuse Monsanto sta from the beliefthat they were on the right track. Investors seemed to buy into the life science model,and GM crop technology enjoyed a successful commercial launch in the USA in1995 and 1996 (Fritsch and Kilman 1996). The enthusiasm of both farmers and WallStreet appeared to endorse Shapiros strategy, reinforcing employees condence intheir companys identity as a successful, sustainable business. However, during 1998and 1999 this self-assurance was to be seriously challenged by a backlash againstbiotechnology. The backlash precipitated a serious crisis for Monsanto and becamethe catalytic moment that sparked major public debates about agricultural

16Interview, Monsanto executive, St Louis, 20 June 2005.17Ciba Geigys agricultural division is now part of Syngenta.

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biotechnology in development, helping to establish that issue as one of the key axesof public disquiet about the socio-political and ethical implications of biotechnology.

The anti-GM backlash: developing countries become more important

Europe was expected to be the focus of Monsantos next major market-expansionthrust. There, however, Monsantos plans ran into serious problems in the Autumnof 1998. Various structural and contingent features of the European landscape madeit a particularly ripe location for a backlash against GM crops that had been brewingfor twenty years or more (Schurman 2004, Schurman and Munro 2006). Anti-GMactivists had been campaigning against the technology since the rst attempt toimport GM grain into European ports in 1996, and momentum had been buildingthrough 1997. In the Autumn of 1998, an ill-conceived Monsanto advertisingcampaign helped to trigger a widespread backlash by European consumers. Thecampaign explicitly asserted that worrying about starving future generations wontfeed the world. Food biotechnology will (quoted in Charles 2001, 222). Within days,European food retailers were pulling foods containing GM ingredients from theirshelves. Within months, the European Union had imposed a de factomoratorium onfurther approvals of GM crops. Surveying the scene, in the summer of 1999, analystsat Deutsche Bank issued a market analysis that declared GMOs are Dead (Charles2001, Schurman 2004, Schurman and Munro 2006, Simanis and Hart 2000).18

From a nancial point of view, the crisis had a disastrous impact on perceptionsof Monsantos ability to realise prots from its large investments in biotechnologicalresearch and development, as well as service the huge debt the company had takenon (Vellema 2004). In other words, the emergency threatened to seriously underminethe socio-technical network Monsantos managers had painstakingly assembledbehind its life sciences strategy. Moreover, the crisis also revealed the inadequatescope of that network, which left out important stakeholder groups that had thepower to disrupt the companys plans. The crisis suddenly revealed the opposition ofstakeholders whose interests Monsantos leadership had fatally misconstrued,misjudged, or failed to anticipate, such as environmental activists and developmentcampaigners. Monsantos managers had proceeded as if innovation were a unilinearprocess in which technologies would ow unproblematically from the companyslaboratories to a compliant public (Vellema 2004).

Part of Monsantos problem was that the rst generation GM crop technologieswere designed to help farmers manage their operations and did not oer a directbenet to end-consumers (Tait and Chataway 2007). That helps to explain whyMonsantos public relations managers resorted to an alternative set of claims, inwhich they invoked the potential benets of (future) GM crops for poor farmers andconsumers in the developing world. Struggles over the interests of developingcountry farmers were therefore placed at the very centre of the crisis facingMonsanto. Provoked by the companys claims about the role of its technologies infeeding the world, anti-GM campaigners latched onto Monsantos announcement, inMay 1998, that it planned to acquire the Delta & Pine Land Company. Delta & Pinewas the joint owner of a US patent on a sterile-seed genetic use restrictiontechnology (GURT) that would render genetically modied plants infertile.

18The report may be found as an appendix to the same analysts subsequent report on DuPont(Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown 1999).


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Anti-GM activists from the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI)19

dubbed the technology the terminator and raised the alarm over the possibility thatit could make farmers dependent on biotechnology and seed companies (Charles2001, Schurman and Munro 2006, Simanis and Hart 2000).

Internationally, movements of farmers, peasants, and landless rural people havecampaigned vigorously against GM crops, terminator technology, and patents oncrops and seeds, which they interpret as connected elements of an integrated threatto seed and food sovereignty, farmers rights, crop biodiversity, and the survival oftraditional seed varieties. Monsanto soon became the symbolic enemy of local,national, and globally networked coalitions of farmers movements and campaignersagainst globalisation, intellectual property rights, free trade, and corporateconcentration (Newell 2008, Schurman 2004, Schurman and Munro 2006, Scoones2008).

Finding themselves depicted as a big, evil corporation intent on controlling andimpoverishing farmers was a profoundly unsettling experience for Monsanto sta,who had become used to thinking of their company as being engaged in thesustainability business. It is important to note the degree to which many peoplewithin Monsanto had evidently internalised the corporate narrative aboutbiotechnology and sustainability. Indeed, unless one takes this factor into account,it is hard to understand why Monsantos leadership ignoring the well-informedadvice of both their European sta and competitors (Schurman 2004, Tait andChataway 2007) stumbled so blindly into the restorm of controversy that engulfedthe company when it sought to introduce GM crops to the European market. Thereactions of company ocials displayed genuine shock and surprise (Glover 2007c,Tait and Chataway 2007).

With markets in Europe closed indenitely, Monsanto needed to turn urgently toother markets in order to begin realising a bigger return on the huge investments ithad ploughed into biotechnology over more than two decades. Developing countrieswere one of the obvious places to turn. Between 1995 and 1999, Robert Shapiro hadled Monsanto on a US$89bn spending spree to buy, or acquire interests in,biotechnology and seed companies around the world. The acquisitions helped totransform Monsanto, almost overnight, into a major player in seed markets in theglobal South. Monsantos plans for commercialising GM crops in key countries,such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, were already in train, but theseplanned expansions became all the more important in the light of the diculties thecompany was facing in Europe. Shapiros successor as CEO, on taking the helm inFebruary 2000, laid down as an urgent priority GM crop commercialisation in threeinternational markets, two of which were in the developing world (Brazil and India the third was the European Union) (Monsanto 2000a).

Monsantos activities in the global South were a key trigger of many anti-GMcampaigners anxiety. They alleged that, by establishing a market for its GM crops inmajor producer countries in the global South, Monsanto hoped to make thetechnology a fait accompli, thus rendering impotent the opposition of consumers totransgenic crops in Europe and elsewhere. For their part, however, Monsantossenior executives and their allies were still convinced that they had a positive story totell about the benets of GM crop technology for poor farmers and consumers in the

19Now the ETC [Erosion, Technology and Concentration] Group. See www.etcgroup.org[Accessed 1 August 2008].

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developing world. One of the consequences of Monsantos setback, therefore, was tostimulate a redoubling of the companys eorts to promote these positive stories atevery opportunity. This would be vital if the company were to reinvigorate thenetwork of supporters it needed to drive its biotechnology strategy. Investors werekey; their condence in Monsanto had been shaken. In order to bring them back onboard, it was important to persuade consumers, development activists, andmediators of public debate, such as journalists, to drop their opposition.

Monsantos leadership took a number of key steps. First, Monsanto publiclyrenounced the terminator technology (Tait 1999). Then, in November 2000, thecompany announced the adoption of a new corporate code of conduct, the NewMonsanto Pledge, together with the creation of the Technology Cooperation andSmallholder Programmes (Monsanto 2000d). The New Monsanto Pledge was arevamped version of an existing set of environmental commitments that Monsantohad adopted in the early 1980s (Monsanto 2000d, Sastry et al. 2002). It committedthe company to a new way of doing business. One of the key commitments was tobring the knowledge and advantages of all forms of agriculture to resource poorfarmers in the developing world to help improve food security and protect theenvironment (Monsanto 2000d).

The Technology Cooperation Programme was an initiative to licence select piecesof Monsantos intellectual property to external researchers for non-commercialapplications, particularly public-good research and applications relevant to thedeveloping world. Examples of the programmes activities include Monsantos deal,concluded in April 2000, to share its working draft of the rice genome with public-sector researchers from the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project; and itsdecisions to share proprietary technology with scientists working on the develop-ment of beta carotene-enhanced Golden Rice and Golden Mustard a few monthslater (Monsanto 2000b, 2000c, 2000e). These were signicant donations, whichnevertheless could only be sanctioned in elds where the gift would not interfere withMonsantos commercial interests (Glover 2007c).

The Smallholder Programme was designed to provide a package of agriculturaltechnologies, extension support, and advice to resource-poor farmers in a selectionof developing countries. Monsanto used it to develop new markets amongsmallholders, promote Monsanto products, encourage farmers to make thetransition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture, and to generateevidence to show that GM technology was suitable and appropriate for small-scalefarmers in the developing world. In some respects, the Smallholder Programme was aremarkable initiative for a corporation to undertake, especially with regard toMonsantos decision to station resident sta in villages, where they were on the spotto help solve farmers agronomic problems. Farmers appreciated the fact thatMonsanto was thus oering them a kind of support unheard of from either itsagribusiness rivals or public extension agencies. However, the programme as a wholewas designed squarely around the promotion of standardised, xed packages ofcommercial farming technologies, primarily to larger and more prosperous farmers.It allowed no space for the farmers either to shape the programmes content or toinuence Monsantos R&D programmes and pipeline technologies (Glover 2007a,2000b).

At the same time as launching these two programmes, Monsanto also began tofund third-party research on the economic, agronomic and environmental impacts ofGM crops in developing countries. This well-resourced initiative has helped to


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generate a substantial body of economic studies which claim that transgenic crops(primarily insect-resistant cotton) have produced a range of signicant benets forsmallholder farmers in the developing world (Glover 2009). Monsanto has also,independently and in concert with other actors, engaged in a well-funded eort topublicise its developing-world activities and to promote GM crops as a safe,environmentally friendly technology that was relevant to international development,food security, and smallholder farming (Glover 2007b).

Conclusions

The prominence of the issues of poverty, hunger, and development in debates aboutcrop genetic modication would appear to owe a great deal to the activities of thebiotechnology industry. It also owes something to the fact that the industrys pro-poor rhetoric provoked such ire among development activists and environmentalists.Thus, through a clash between public relations hype by biotechnologys supportersand angry denouncement by its opponents, images of smallholder farmers and poorconsumers in developing countries as victims of hunger, as technologicalentrepreneurs and so on have assumed a weighty symbolic importance in globaldisputes about the merits and risks of GM crops (Bernauer and Aerni 2007).

It is important to remember that the biotechnology industry is not the sole sourceof pro-poor biotechnology rhetoric. A question not directly addressed by this paperis what may be the relationship between the pro-poor GM language of companieslike Monsanto and the similar claims that have been articulated by many respectedacademics, international organisations, and scientic bodies (see Glover 2009,Jansen and Gupta 2009). Further investigation will be required in order tounderstand why the image of GM crops as a technology that has some essentialconnection with poverty alleviation and agricultural development has become sowidespread and entrenched.

This paper has shown that, while Monsantos energetic promotion of GM cropsas a technology to benet the poor and boost food production is, of course, partly amatter of public relations spin, it is also signicantly more than that. For one thing,the pro-poor GM crops storyline has a much longer history than is sometimesappreciated. It was already emerging within Monsantos corporate discourse at leastas long ago as the mid-1980s. Thus, when the anti-GM backlash erupted in the late1990s, the narrative was already a well-developed resource that Monsanto couldmobilise in its counterattack against its critics.

Secondly, this paper has demonstrated that the pro-poor, sustainability rhetoricemerged in tandem with the development of Monsantos GM technology itself. Inother words, the narrative emerged from the same set of underlying corporateprocesses that produced the transgenic crops that were emerging from Monsantoslaboratories and greenhouses. Furthermore, the pro-poor GM rhetoric can be seento have had material and organisational eects, since it played an important role inthe process by which Monsantos leadership transformed the company from achemicals and pharmaceuticals conglomerate into an agricultural biotechnologybusiness a radical transformation that involved jettisoning the historical core of thecompany. It did so by creating a sense of strategic purpose and direction towards agoal that, it was argued, would create a technically feasible and commercially viablefuture for the company. The rhetoric thus helped Monsantos senior managers tonegotiate their way from a starting point of profound uncertainty to a point where

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they could feel much more condent in their directions and goals and, indeed, makethose outcomes more likely to come about. On the way, the narrative helped thebiotechnology advocates within the company to sideline the conventional, chemistry-based approaches supported by some of their colleagues.

However, although Monsantos pro-poor GM rhetoric and its commercial andtechnical biotechnology strategy were emerging side by side, they were, nevertheless,evolving somewhat independently of one another. The primary drivers of the GMcrop technology strategy were various technical, nancial, legal, competitive, andindustrial trends that industry executives perceived to be unfolding during the 1970s,80s, and 90s. Among the most important concerns of Monsantos leadership was theneed to sustain the protable life of Roundup. These factors had little to do with theneeds and priorities of smallholder farmers or hungry consumers in the developingworld. Instead, the rst generation of GM crop technologies were determined bytechnical capabilities and constraints and shaped by the needs of Monsantos coremarkets among large-scale farmers, primarily in the industrialised world.

Nevertheless, the pro-poor GM crops storyline can be seen to have had certaindirect and indirect eects with regard to Monsantos engagement in developing-country markets. The adoption of the developing country goal and thereorientation of the company around the twin ideas of sustainability and the lifesciences entailed the acquisitions of numerous companies that made Monsanto a keyplayer in seed markets in the global South. That brought the company into directcontact with the kinds of smallholder farmers who make up the majority of theexisting and, especially, the potential market for agricultural inputs in countries likeIndia.

Meanwhile, the content of the pro-poor biotechnology narrative also helped toplace developing country agriculture and the needs of smallholder farmers near thecentre of Monsantos business strategy. This occurred in two ways. First, the visionof a life science company harnessing revolutionary science for the attainment ofimportant human goals, articulated most clearly by Robert Shapiro, implicitlyinvolved poor farmers and consumers of the developing world as key symbolicstakeholders in the development and commercialisation of agricultural biotechnol-ogy. Secondly, while the GM crop moratorium in the European Union meant thatdeveloping-country markets became more important from a commercial point ofview, in addition the anti-biotech backlash also challenged Monsanto to justify itsclaims about the relevance and value of GM crops in the developing world. Thelatter imperative gave rise to a strenuous eort to generate and promote good newsstories around GM crops in developing countries.

Thus, the rhetoric of pro-poor, sustainable GM crops had strategic, material andorganisational eects, even though it failed to shape the specic kinds of GM croptechnologies that Monsanto was developing. A key question for the future is: Nowthat Monsanto is established as a major global seed business, with many millions ofsmall-scale farmers among its current and potential customers in the developingworld, will it begin to produce new technologies that have been designed moreclosely around their needs and priorities? The possibility seems plausible, but theevidence of such products emerging from Monsantos R&D pipeline is lacking. Inthe companys current projections, its near- and medium-term GM crop pipeline isstill dominated by the short list of crops prioritised by the company in the recent past(maize, soybean, cotton, and canola) and by herbicide-tolerance and insect-resistance traits, as well as changes in the composition of soybean oils. These crops


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and traits are primarily targeted towards large-scale commercial agriculture andindustrial processing rather than small-scale or subsistence farmers.20

Two traits that could conceivably be more relevant to such farmers are improvedyields (currently under development in maize, soybean, and canola) and droughttolerance (in maize). Monsanto estimates that the latter product could be ready forcommercialisation within the next year to three years, with the higher yielding traitscoming onto the market between two and seven years ahead, provided they continueto progress through the early stages of development.21 It remains to be seen whetherthese traits will be made available in crop types and varieties and at prices that willmake them relevant to poor and small-scale farmers in the developing world.

What we do not see from these projections are investments in the improvement ofso-called orphan crops of interest to developing-country farmers, or of crop typesdesigned to perform well in the poor soils and constrained institutional contexts thatmany poor farmers face. A second key question, therefore, is whether governments,aid donors, and international organisations might be able to design mechanisms andincentives that would encourage large transnational agribusiness and biotechnologycompanies like Monsanto to apply their technological capabilities and marketingknow-how to the development of more explicitly pro-poor applications ofbiotechnology in the future. The design of such mechanisms would have to nd away around a formidable range of obstacles, including corporate concerns aboutintellectual property rights; the high costs of biotechnology R&D relative to thesmall nancial returns that might be reaped from selling agricultural technologies topoor smallholders; and, not least, the conceptual and practical challenges that wouldbe involved in reorienting corporate R&D programmes around very dierent typesof innovation (see Chataway 2005).

This paper has added to our understanding of Monsantos role as one of theprimary drivers of agricultural biotechnologys development, not only in its technicaland commercial aspects but also in its contentious politics and symbolic associations.In particular, the paper extends the existing academic literature on Monsantostechnological innovation and commercialisation strategies (e.g. Chataway and Tait2000, Joly 1999, Vellema 2004) and its environmental and sustainability policies andrhetoric (e.g. Kleinman and Kloppenburg 1991, Resetar et al. 1999, Sastry et al.2002, Simanis and Hart 2000) by explaining how those strategies and practices arelinked to the companys activities in the developing world and have helped to shapethe ways in which GM crop technologies have come to be portrayed and applied inthe context of international development.

Recognising that GM crops and the associated pro-poor rhetoric were bothshaped by Monsanto (and the biotechnology industry generally) is important,because it helps to explain why the pro-poor GM crops storyline is so politicallyloaded and contentious. In the light of that knowledge, policy makers and analystsshould strive to separate their evaluation of the substantive content and specicimpacts of GM crop technologies from airy claims about their pro-poor promise ordevelopmental eects.

20Phase Advancements For Key Projects Reect Progress and Strength ThroughoutMonsantos Industry-Leading Pipeline, January 2009 update, http://www.monsanto.com/pdf/pipeline/2009_pipeline_updates_slide.pdf [Accessed 2 July 2009].21Ibid, and We Address Challenges One Phase at a Time, Beginning with Discovery, http://www.monsanto.com/pdf/pipeline/pipeline_2009_phase.pdf [Accessed 2 July 2009].

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