In the mid-1990s, Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro insisted that the firm he headed, primarily known since its founding in the early twentieth century as a commodity chemical manufacturer, had become a forerunner of a new and “more ethereal strategy—sustainability.”1 Biotechnology was core to this strategic transformation, explained Shapiro, for only via “the substitution of information for stuff,” that is, by shifting from agrochemicals to information technology, could multinational corporations like Monsanto confront the environmental degradation caused by unsustainable industrial agriculture.2
Three decades later, Monsanto was acquired by the German chemical firm Bayer, largely for its expertise in biotechnology and digital agriculture. Yet for all the continued promises to substitute “information for stuff,” Monsanto remains one of the world's largest producers of agrochemicals. Glyphosate, developed by Monsanto and marketed as Roundup since the early 1970s, continues to be the most widely used herbicide in modern agriculture. Despite...
