Monsanto UK Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Monsanto Company, based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, where the company was founded in 1901. Raw materials imported from the UK helped fuel the company's first factory, which made products for the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Monsanto's presence in the UK has evolved significantly since its origins here in 1919, when the company entered into a partnership with R.A. Graesser Chemical works in Ruabon, Wales.

Following merger with our previous parent company Pharmacia Corp. and subsequently pharmaceutical company Pfizer, today’s Monsanto Company was formed through a "spin-off" from Pharmacia which allowed Monsanto to become an independent and stand-alone agricultural company. Monsanto had at this stage already been operating as a separate entity since an initial public offering of Monsanto Co. shares on the New York Stock exchange in the autumn of 2000. Click here.

Today Monsanto is acknowledged as a unique agricultural company, with its blend of agricultural seeds, traits, and chemicals - such as the herbicide Roundup -  providing integrated solutions to farmers around the world. As a leading world-wide provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products which improve farm productivity and food quality, the company employs some 16,000 people in over 100 countries. To check the current share price on the New York Stock Exchange, where Monsanto is a member of Standard and Poor's benchmark top 500 stocks index, click here.

Over the past two decades, Monsanto’s business has evolved from one predominantly based on agricultural chemicals to one where seeds and advanced genetic traits increasingly dominate our product portfolio. Genetically modified crop plants are part of that product mix, and are already grown extensively in other parts of the world, particularly in the USA, South America, China and Canada. They have only recently been introduced in Europe and are not yet grown commercially in the UK.

Field trials have been testing GM crops since 1992, and in March 2000, full farm-scale trials (FSTs) of three GM crops across England and Scotland were given the go-ahead by Government. In all, almost 300 such trials were carried out over a four year period. An independent committee of scientists agreed that 15 fields of modified oilseed rape, 16 fields of GM maize and 25 fields of mixed GM sugar and fodder beet would be planted in the spring and autumn. All FSTs were monitored regularly to check for the expected positive and any potential negative impacts on biodiversity. Biodiversity in this instance includes countryside wildlife, animals, birds, etc. within and around the crop.

For explanation of the 2002 Farm Scale Evaluation trials, click here.

A few genetically modified foods and products containing genetically modified ingredients are available in the UK. These include products containing ingredients from imported genetically modified soya and maize. Typical examples are certain types of cooking oil, cake toppings and certain other prepared foods. In addition, many types of hard cheese are nowadays manufactured using an enzyme from GM sources called chymosin, used in place of rennet taken from calves' stomachs, thereby making it suitable for many vegetarians. Between 1996 and 1999, around 1.8 million cans of the world's first GM processed whole food - tomato puree - were successfully sold in two supermarkets nationwide in the UK. Neither the cheese nor the puree were Monsanto products.

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Monsanto UK Ltd.
PO Box 663
Cambourne
Cambridge CB1 0LD
England
tel. 01223 849200

In June 2004 we announced the successful sale of the cereals business of PBIC to French plant breeding company, RAGT (http://www.ragt-semences.com/default_ang.asp)

Monsanto UK Ltd develops new varieties of Oilseed rape for UK agriculture, and markets a range of Monsanto crop protection products (see www.monsanto-ag.co.uk)