“Bayer will remain the company name. Monsanto will no longer be a company name. The acquired products will retain their brand names and become part of the Bayer portfolio,” Bayer said in a statement to Reuters.
Andrew Kimbrell, the executive director of Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group which campaigns against GMO food, said in a statement on Tuesday (June 5) that Bayer “should not assume that just by dropping a name they have dropped the liability. The worldwide food and environmental movements know that Bayer is now the ‘new Monsanto.’”
In an apparent nod to the controversies surrounding Monsanto, Bayer’s CEO Werner Baumann said the company aims to “deepen our dialogue with society. We will listen to our critics and work together where we find common ground. Agriculture is too important to allow ideological differences to bring progress to a standstill.”