Monsanto sells dairy hormone business for $300 million
Monsanto Co. is selling its dairy hormone business to Eli Lilly and Co. for $300 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly will purchase assets and liabilities of Monsanto associated with the Posilac brand and related business. The transaction will be completed as soon as practical, the company said. The deal also includes other considerations that might benefit Monsanto, but additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Lilly’s animal health division, Elanco, headquartered in Greenfield, Ind., has been marketing recombinant bovine somatotropin for Monsanto over the last decade outside the United States under a licensing agreement.
Posilac is an government-approved animal pharmaceutical used by U.S. dairy farmers to increase dairy cow’s milk output. Though it has been used by dairy farmers in the U.S. since 1994, the use of the hormone has become controversial in recent years after some dairy wholesalers began to label some brands of milk as being free of rbST.
Monsanto has tried to get regulators to force the stop the practice of using such labels, arguing that Food and Drug Administration tests show no difference in milk from cows that have been given Posilac and those that have not.
It does not make sense that giving cows hormones to produce more milk or grow more beef can be beneficial to the consumers of these products.
Milk and beef are wonderful foods for many.
I grew up drinking milk at every meal.
Why contaminate it with chemicals? I dont care what the FDA says. Government agencies have been wrong many, many times.
Maybe hormones in foods is one reason that young women and men mature at an earlier age than they used to.???
Hormones are a health risk.
It’s too bad the general public is so confused about this issue. For those who don’t know, hormones occur naturally in milk cows and are present in ALL milk, whether the cows receive rBST or not. There is NO SUCH THING as hormone-free milk - those of you buying it are paying a “feel good” premium. All rBST is is a supplement of these naturally occurring hormones. The more we move away from using technology such as this, the more cows it will take to produce the same amount of milk and the higher prices we will pay as consumers.
People are never happy. The price of milk and beef go up and people complain. Science creates a way to produce more milk and meat from smaller amounts of cattle feed (the reason dairy and beef are more expensive is due to the price of corn) and the same people complain.
To make an overarching statement like, “Hormones are a health risk.” shows how little the average public knows about this topic, and how much they buy into the “hormone-free/chemical-free” advertising.
“Why contaminate it with chemicals?”…I agree, contaminating milk with chemicals is a bad thing. However, any person educated on the subject at all would know that milk from cows treated with Posilac does not contain any more “chemicals” than from untreated cows. It is unfortunate that many organizations spread false “information” to confuse the uneducated consumer.