Monsanto announces Roundup price drop

Monsanto shed more light Friday on their reasons for cutting the price of their glyphoste-based Roundup, PowerMax and WeatherMax brands by up to 50 percent. A greater supply of glyphosate in 2009 caused prices to go down and the company’s move this week is to bring pricing in line with the marketplace, according to Glenn Stith, North American crop protection lead for Monsanto.

"We just want to make sure that we’re providing a competitively priced Roundup brand with superior quality versus Chinese alternatives, and to underscore the fact that we’ve increased our production capacity to make sure that we can reliably supply this marketplace,” Stith told Brownfield during a teleconference Friday, in response to a question as to why performance concerns over Chinese-produced glyphosate would prompt a cut in price.

"This supply/demand imbalance really is the result of increasing global demand coupled with supply discontinuities, primarily related to policy decisions in China impacting Chinese producers,” said Stith. “That really resulted in a diversion of raw materials away from glyphosate toward other uses.”

Also announced Friday is that Monsanto has formed a crop protection division that Stith says will focus exclusively on the company’s chemistry business encompassing Monsanto’s Roundup, Harness and Degree chemistry brands. Stith says this was done to make sure Monsanto is putting the appropriate focus on their chemistry business.

"We now have a robust team of folks here in St. Louis as well as in the field that will be totally dedicated to providing the best quality service possible for our chemistry products,” he said.

A vast number of acres are planted to crops genetically enhanced to tolerate the broad spectrum herbicide Roundup. Monsanto officials on the conference call said 75-85 percent of corn acres are now Roundup Ready and 95 percent of soybean acres are Roundup Ready.

Monsanto also announced greater investments in chemistry and infrastructure. Stith says anticipated demand for Roundup is the reason they’re investing in the facility in Louisiana that supplies Monsanto’s Roundup brands.