Monsanto’s image takes a beating

It’s been a rough few months for Monsanto’s efforts to brand itself an environmentally responsible company.

But last week the St. Louis-based chemical giant suffered a blow that’s potentially bigger than the bad PR it’s gotten all month from the documentary film Food Inc.: A U.S. Appeals Court ruling gives momentum to farmers and environmentalists who are trying to block the company’s genetically engineered takeover of global seed stocks.

Monsanto never exactly has been an enviro-darling. While it refers to itself nowadays as an “agricultural company,” it’s still perceived for its Big Chem roots and is best known for Astroturf, Roundup and genetically modified seeds. But few companies have suffered as bad a spate of environmental headlines as Monsanto has since April.

As best I can tell, the bad publicity started on April Fool’s Day (appropriately enough). That’s when The EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index placed Monsanto’s “Imagine” ad campaign on its site, which allows users to rate corporate environmental campaigns for their greenwashing quotient — “5″ being the worst score. Monsanto Imagine has held a perfect “5″ since it’s been listed.

As British Columbia’s Green Pages reported:

Clicking on the ad actually takes the reader to Monsanto’s ‘Corporate Responsibility’ webpage entitled, “Sustainable Agriculture“. The company claims that, “it now takes 30 percent less energy to grow a ton of corn than just a decade ago. It takes less water and less pesticide, too.” Why? Because Monsanto’s genetically-modified seeds require less water and use of the company’s own brand of pesticide — seeds and pesticides that literally lock farmers into using Monsanto products which, over time, devastate the land and leave fields fallow.

Then, just last week, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that the company hasn’t succeeded at cleaning up a facility that’s been sending toxic chemicals into as many as 15 Idaho streams since 2002. As the Associated Press reported: “Federal regulators said Thursday an Idaho mine that Monsanto Co. depends on to make its Roundup weed killer has violated federal and state water quality laws almost since it opened, sending selenium and other heavy metals into the region’s waterways.”

The agency may yet take some kind of enforcement action against the company, which agreed in 2007 to clean up its act at the mine after the EPA twice cited it for Clean Water Act violations.

The bigger blow came Wednesday, when a Federal Appeals Court kept in place a two-year old ban on the company’s genetically engineered alfalfa seeds. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:

Monsanto got regulatory approval for biotech alfalfa in 2005. A year later, two alfalfa-seed farms and a coalition of environmental groups sued the government, challenging the decision to approve the crop without requiring an environmental impact statement.

The groups cited concerns that conventional and organic alfalfa could be contaminated through cross-pollination, preventing crops from being sold. They also claimed biotech crops have led to overuse of herbicides and given rise to “super weeds” resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

A U.S. District Judge in San Francisco issued an injunction that banned the planting of biotech alfalfa after March 30, 2007. By then, more than 260,000 acres of the Roundup Ready alfalfa had been planted.

The company’s foes in court, which include the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, called the ruling a “turning point” in the broader battle against Monsanto over genetically engineered crops. Next up: A similar lawsuit over Monsanto’s patented sugar-beet seeds.

The company’s already been immersed in damage control over Food Inc. for the image its gotten from the way it defends its seed patents. The documentary takes aim at several agribusinesses, but Monsanto comes across as the biggest bully, because the aggressive stand the company takes against farmers regarding the patents.

The company’s response to the movie has been, as much as possible, to pivot the conversation. It’s attempted to place the movie’s makers on the defensive by pushing the idea that Food Inc. “demonizes farmers.” The problem with that is that anyone who’s seen the movie knows that’s not the case. Food Inc. actually offers a very sympathetic view of farmers who’ve had to defend themselves against Monsanto’s aggressive army of lawyers.

Monsanto’s also turning for help to other Big Ag players and to a couple of “Astroturf” groups — fake grassroots organizations that are really fronts for industry. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Karl Rovian, dig-in-its-heals and counterattack approach to environmental controversy will work for Monsanto. My sense is that the gig’s up on such groups because it’s so easy to expose them on the Internet.

Last week, the company’s even got a bruising over the movie from its hometown paper over Food Inc.

Being a target can’t be too much fun. The movie appears to have emboldened the growing ranks of local and organic food advocates, and Monsanto PR folks are attempting to counter that wave of bad publicity on every medium. As this entertaining Twitter exchange involving Civil Eats’ Rob Smart demonstrates, however, when your back’s against the wall, sometimes it’s best to remain silent.

It would be a bit pat to say that negative environmental publicity had much to do with the 14 percent drop in profits and a planned layoff of 900 workers that the company announced last week. Monsanto’s too big for that, and it still made nearly $700 million in the last quarter. In fact, the company’s bio-engineered seeds and related business lines rose to more than two-thirds of the company’s sales in the quarter.

But those numbers show how dependent Monsanto is on the seed business, and how a tainted image in that one line of business is something the company needs to avoid.

UPDATE: Should’ve noted earlier that I sent an invitation to respond to this story to Monsanto’s PR department but have yet to receive a response.

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