Seed Money cover art

Seed Money

Monsanto's Past and Our Food Future

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Seed Money

By: Bartow J. Elmore
Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
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About this listen

An authoritative and eye-opening history that examines how Monsanto came to have outsized influence over our food system.

Monsanto, a St. Louis chemical firm that became the world’s largest maker of genetically engineered seeds, merged with German pharma-biotech giant Bayer in 2018—but its Roundup Ready® seeds, introduced twenty-five years ago, are still reshaping the farms that feed us.

When researchers found trace amounts of the firm’s blockbuster herbicide in breakfast cereal bowls, Monsanto faced public outcry. Award-winning historian Bartow J. Elmore shows how the Roundup story is just one of the troubling threads of Monsanto’s past, many told here and woven together for the first time.

A company employee sitting on potentially explosive information who weighs risking everything to tell his story. A town whose residents are urged to avoid their basements because Monsanto’s radioactive waste laces their homes’ foundations. Factory workers who peel off layers of their skin before accepting cash bonuses to continue dirty jobs. An executive wrestling with the ethics of selling a profitable product he knew was toxic.

Incorporating global fieldwork, interviews with company employees, and untapped corporate and government records, Elmore traces Monsanto’s astounding evolution from a scrappy chemical startup to a global agribusiness powerhouse. Monsanto used seed money derived from toxic products—including PCBs and Agent Orange—to build an agricultural empire, promising endless bounty through its genetically engineered technology.

Skyrocketing sales of Monsanto’s new Roundup Ready system stunned even those in the seed trade, who marveled at the influx of cash and lavish incentives into their sleepy sector. But as new data emerges about the Roundup system, and as Bayer faces a tide of lawsuits over Monsanto products past and present, Elmore’s urgent history shows how our food future is still very much tethered to the company’s chemical past.
Agricultural & Food Sciences Economics Environmental Economics Science Money Technology Food Science Employment

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All stars
Most relevant
This book looked purely at the facts and business practices of Monsanto without getting derailed by conspiracy theories. I would recommend

Fair assessment

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This gripping account of a corporate giant’s horrific attempts to play cat and mouse to stale mate make you see the world in a whole new light, learning of the absolute disaster that big industry wreaks on our species and all others, yet understanding the weight of the battle that a few can fight back.
The whole world should read this book and reevaluate our relationships with the synthesised world!
Thank you Bartow for your committed research!

Life changing

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Incredible research and in depth knowledge that everyone needs to know! I never realised how wide spread the problem of monsanto ruining out soils has gone!
I was not a fan of the narrator, however the story is extremly intreging.

Everyone needs to know this story!

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