Bayer to toss away Monsanto brand name

Chemicals and pharmaceuticals company Bayer will discard the name Monsanto when it takes over the controversial US seed and pesticides producer, it says.

But Bayer executives insisted Monsanto practices rejected by environmentalists, including genetic modification of seeds and deployment of “crop protection” technologies like pesticides, were vital to help feed a growing world population.

“The company name is and will remain Bayer. Monsanto will no longer be a company name,” CEO Werner Baumann told journalists.

Bayer’s $63bn buyout of Monsanto is set to close on Thursday, giving birth to a global company with 115,000 employees and revenues of €45bn.

Bosses planned to name the merged agrichemical division Bayer Crop Science, business newspaper Handelsblatt said, citing “industry sources”.

The Monsanto brand “was an issue for some time for Monsanto management”, noted Liam Condon, president of Bayer’s crop science division, adding that the US firm’s employees were “not fixated on the Monsanto brand”, but “proud of what they’ve achieved”.

Monsanto has for decades been a target of protests and lawsuits for harm to health and the environment.

“It’s understandable that Bayer wants to avoid having bought Monsanto’s negative image with the billions it has spent on the firm,” said Greenpeace campaigner Dirk Zimmermann. “More important than giving up the name would be a fundamental transformation in the new mega-company’s policies,” he said, accusing Bayer of having “no interest in developing future-proof, sustainable solutions for agriculture”.

Activists fear the firm’s addition to Bayer will further reduce competition in the hotly contested agrichemical sector, limiting farmers’ and consumers’ choices if they want to avoid genetically modified and chemically treated crops.

THE MONSANTO BRAND 'WAS AN ISSUE FOR SOME TIME FOR MONSANTO MANAGEMENT’

What is more, in recent years weeds have begun to emerge that are resistant to products like Monsanto staple glyphosate, marketed as Roundup alongside Roundup-ready seeds beginning in the 1990s. As agrichemical firms scramble to respond with new pesticides and resistant seeds, there are fears of an arms race with ever more potent weedkillers.

Some scientists already suspect glyphosate could cause cancer, with a 2015 World Health Organisation study determining it was “probably carcinogenic” — although Bayer and other defenders of the chemical have contested the research.