Seed Money

This is the definitive story of Monsanto, a chemical company from St. Louis that became the world's largest producer of genetically modified seeds. Monsanto merged with the German pharmaceutical biotech giant Bayer in 2018, but the Roundup Ready seeds introduced twenty-five years ago continue to shape the agriculture that feeds us. Award-winning historian Bartow J. Elmore traces Monsanto's remarkable evolution from a small chemical startup to a global agricultural enterprise by incorporating global field research, interviews with company employees, and unused corporate and government documents.

Through dealings with customers such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, and particularly the U.S. government, Monsanto leveraged startup capital derived from toxic products like PCBs and Agent Orange to build an agricultural empire, promising endless yields through its genetically modified technology. As new data about its blockbuster Roundup system emerges and Bayer faces a wave of lawsuits regarding past and present Monsanto products, Elmore's urgent narrative takes a deep look at the company's past.