Bayer Crop Science: A 25-Year Tale of Triumph and Turmoil
Editor’s Note: As we mark the first 25 years of the 21st century, CropLife reflects on the innovations, challenges, and transformations that have shaped ag retail — honoring our past while looking ahead to agriculture’s promising future. In this article, we spotlight Bayer Crop Science’s journey over the past quarter-century, including the Monsanto merger, glyphosate fallout, and the road ahead.
For Bayer Crop Science, the company’s fortunes the past 25 years could easily fit the opening line of “A Tale of Two Cities” – “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
The millennium started out as “the best of times.” In the early years of the 21st century, Bayer spent a fair amount of its time (and corporate energy/resources) expanding its market presence in agriculture. In late 2001, the company agreed to purchase the agricultural assets of Aventis CropScience. And in 2004, Bayer CropScience combined its existing seed treatment business with that of Gustafson, LLC.
Combined, these moves helped Bayer increase its overall market share among crop protection/seed suppliers across the globe.
Then came to big move. In September 2016, Monsanto Co. – the owners of the Roundup Ready (glyphosate) cropping system that had supercharged biotech crop development in the mid-1990s – announced that its board had accepted a $66 billion acquisition offer from Bayer. With that, one of the preeminent chemical businesses in Bayer had combined its resources with Monsanto’s seed and biotech portfolio, creating an ag industry giant.
“We are pleased to announce the combination of our two great organizations,” said then Bayer AG CEO Werner Baumann. “This represents a major step forward for our Crop Science business and reinforces Bayer’s leadership position as a global innovation-driven Life Science company.”
The Worst of Times
Unfortunately, about the same time Bayer was closing its deal to acquire Monsanto in 2015-16, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a report where it named glyphosate as a “probable carcinogenic.” Until this point, there had been numerous lawsuits filed against Monsanto/Roundup herbicide. However, the IARC ruling opened the floodgates to hundreds of damage suits being filed.
Since Bayer Crop Protection now owned Monsanto, all of these court cases became its problem.
Not too long after the Monsanto purchase was finalized, in 2018, a California jury ruled in favor of a male plaintiff, awarding him more than $250 million in damages. Several other Roundup cases across the country also awarded damages against Bayer to the tune of several billion dollars.
Naturally, Bayer fought back against these legal challenges. In 2020, the company agreed to pay between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion to settle thousands of glyphosate lawsuits. According to the data, Bayer produces about 40% of the world’s glyphosate. As of 2025, the company estimates that it has set aside more than $16 billion for glyphosate settlements. However, there are at least 67,000 lawsuits still pending.
It is perhaps all this demonization of glyphosate that led to Bayer CEO Bill Anderson to hint that Roundup’s time in the company’s product portfolio might be coming to an end. Since taking over as CEO in 2023, Anderson has said one of his goals is to get the glyphosate litigation under control by 2026. Exiting glyphosate might be a first step towards this.
“We’re pretty much reaching the end of the road,” said Anderson. “We’re talking months, not years.”
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