MONSANTO PROFITS
Doesn’t it just warm your heart to hear that a major multinational corporation that manufactures pesticides and seeds that have been genetically altered to be resistant to those very same pesticides is getting scary rich? According to a Jan. 3 Associated Press story, Monsanto’s earnings during the quarter that ended Nov. 30, 2007 topped $256 million—nearly triple what it earned a year earlier. The reason, according to the AP, is booming Latin American sales. But the real kicker is that sales in just the GMO portion of the company rose to $836 million, which was way higher than the $680 million in seeds Monsanto sold in the first fiscal quarter of the previous year. “[O]ur success in seeds and traits will ultimately determine how we meet our 2008 commitments and our 2012 targets,” Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant said, according to the story. And that includes Monsanto Hawai`i’s GMO corn production.
RANK PREVIOUS COMPANY
1 2 Monsanto Hawai`i
2 1 Alexander & Baldwin
3 3 Maui Electric Co.
4 4 Weinberg Foundation
5 5 Dowling Co.
6 7 Tesoro Hawai`i
7 6 Maui Land & Pineapple Co.
8 8 Goodfellow Brothers
9 9 Wailuku Water Co.
10 10 Hawaiian Telcom
ML&P DROPS
You know getting publicity is starting to become a problem for ML&P when their public relations flacks start asking ME for help. “I hope Maui Times [sic] will recognize Maui Land and Pineapple’s investment in Mokulele Airlines as newsworthy,” Mathias Maas, an account coordinator with the PR firm Loomis-ISC emailed me on Jan. 3. “This is a feisty, growing airline that is connecting people and businesses throughout the Hawaiian [I]slands inexpensively and in comfort… Mokulele’s Cessna Caravan with the Kapalua butterfly is already in the air and generating a lot of comment.” And a few days previous, on Dec. 29, 2007, ML&P public relations manager Tracy Johnson emailed me asking if I could “make a mention of this cool bet” in which Maui Land & Pine would provide the pineapples for Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hanneman’s bet against Athens-Clarke Mayor Heidi Davison that the University of Hawai`i would win the Sugar Bowl. “It seems a lot of friendly wagers are going on!!!” she added. “Go Warriors!” MTW
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