Consumers can buy Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide online from Amazon.com, in their local independently owned hardware store, or in giant retail stores like Walmart, Home Depot and Costco and others. But all those stores get their Roundup from one source: Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE:SMG), which owns the exclusive right to distribute Roundup to retailers in the U.S. and most of Europe.
Scotts (according to company statements) is the world’s largest lawn and garden products company. The Marysville, Ohio-based company markets a lineup of at least 21 brands—including an organic line, called Nature’s Care.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn: I’m boycotting ALL Scotts brands until you stop selling Monsanto’s Roundup!
After you take action using this form, call the company at 937-644-0011 or call their customer service line at 888-270-3714, tweet @Scotts_MGro, and post on Scotts Facebook page.
Scotts distributes about $154 million worth (about 5.5 percent of the company’s total sales) of Roundup each year to retail giants, including Amazon, Costco, Home Depot and Walmart. In 2015, Scotts signed an agreement with Monsanto to expand its marketing of Roundup—paying the biotech giant $300 million to start selling the herbicide in more markets, including China and Latin America, and in its lawncare and landscaping business.
Under the expanded deal with Monsanto, Scotts now pushes Roundup for use on private lawns and public parks—something the company is well positioned to do, since its 2015 purchase of lawncare service provider TruGreen (formerly ChemLawn).
Scotts is also partners with Monsanto to market Roundup-Ready genetically engineered grass seed —a product both companies successfully lobbied the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for an exemption from pre-market safety testing. (OCA previously called for a boycott of Scotts after it launched its GMO grass seed).
An eco-friendly imposter
Despite its cozy and profitable relationship with Monsanto and its obviously toxic chemical-based business model, Scotts goes out of its way to portray itself as an eco-friendly company, dedicated to preserving nature. The company says it designs products that “work in harmony” with nature. The Scotts website says:
As gardeners, it is our responsibility to leave the environment in better shape than we found it. That’s our commitment at ScottsMiracle-Gro.
Really? Nothing says poison like Monsanto’s Roundup.
Products to boycott
In addition to its organic brand, Nature’s Care, (created in an attempt to attract millennials), in the U.S., Scotts sells four other consumer lawn and garden products: Scotts, Miracle-Gro, Tomcat and Ortho. (Scotts bought the ortho brand from its partner-in-crime, Monsanto). For a complete list of Scotts brands, visit this webpage.
For advice on how to grow an organic lawn, read these tips from Chip Osborne, founder and president of Osborne Organics.
As the popular online investment site, The Motley Fool, suggests, Scotts would survive just fine without its sales of Roundup. In fact, sales of Scotts products might actually improve if the company disassociated itself from Monsanto.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn: I’m boycotting ALL Scotts brands until you stop selling Monsanto’s Roundup!
