Monsanto announced Wednesday that sales in the company’s agricultural productivity segment, which includes its probable carcinogen Roundup herbicide, fell 34 % to $820 million. Monsanto’s shares fell over 2% as a result.
The Biotech giant also said Wednesday that it now plans to cut a total of 3600 jobs, or about 16 % of its global work force, through fiscal 2018, and expects to record $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion in restructuring charges.
In October, Monsanto said that it would slash 2,600 jobs worldwide as part of a global restructuring effort to cut costs and boost savings, including consolidating some business and research centers and getting out of the sugar cane business, Reuters reported.
Monsanto has been struggling for investor confidence following the announcement in March 2015 that the World Health Organisation’s cancer agency had declared the world’s most widely used weedkiller – glyphosate – a “probable human carcinogen”.
Glyphosate is the base of Monsanto’s whole business model;
a) the glyphosate-based herbicide ‘Roundup’ is Monsanto’s leading product.
b) Roundup is the herbicide that the majority of Monsanto’s GM crops are designed to be grown with.
Good riddance to sugar and Monsanto!