Monsanto to Cut 1,000 More Jobs
US agribusiness giant Monsanto, world's largest seed maker by revenue, has issued a profit warning for 2016 and announced plans to step up job cuts and restructuring.
The just announced 1,000 job cuts come on top of the 2,600 unveiled in October 2015. Monsanto said it expects to take charges of $1.1-1.2 billion to finance the restructuring, against the $850-900 million already forecast.
Monsanto’s plans reflect a weak agricultural economy and currency headwinds from the strong US dollar and the devaluation of the Argentinian peso.
In the company’s financial quarter that ended on Nov. 30, corn sales, its leading source of profit, fell 20% to $745 million. Soybean sales, by contrast, rose by 11% to $438 million.
Sales of the agricultural productivity segment, including the blockbuster Roundup weed killer, fell to $820 million from $1.25 billion in the comparable period of the last fiscal year.
Alongside Swiss rival Syngenta’s rejection of its takeover bid, Monsanto also is being buffeted by bans of genetically engineered crops in various countries around the world. Late last year, a beekeepers lawsuit in Mexico stopped the US company from planting soybeans with built-in resistance to Roundup.
Monsanto had received permission from the agriculture ministry to plant its seeds on over 250,000 hectares of land, but a district judge in the state of Yucatán overturned the permit, saying that “co-existence between honey production and GM soybeans is not possible.” Mexico is the world’s fourth largest honey producer and fifth largest honey exporter.
