Monsanto is a 100 percent agriculture company, but shares a name with Monsanto Company, which existed from 1901 to 1997 as a chemical comglomerate. That Monsanto spun off its chemical business in 1997, and merged with Pharmacia & Upjohn to form Pharmacia Corp. in 2000. Pharmacia was acquired by Pfizer, and in 2003 Pfizer spun off its agricultural businesses as a separate company named Monsanto.
Because of various spin-off provisions and legal settlements, the new Monsanto is responsible for various legacy issues relating to past operations of these predecessor companies. These issues include Agent Orange and aspartame. Asparatame was sold with the NutraSweet business by Pharmacia, but we still receive a number of queries related to it. Agent Orange continues to be an issue.
Information on both of these issues can be found here:
