Monsanto made the cover of the new issue of Business Week, in an article describing the company's increasing fortunes since 2002. That year, the stock was in the tank, then-CEO Hendrik A. Verfaillie was on his way out, and worldwide fears over genetically modified food threatened to derail the company's entire business model. However, since then the company's fortunes have improved tremendously - the stock alone has risen more than 1,000%, and the price-to-earnings ratio currently stands two points higher than Google's.

The article credits current CEO Hugh Grant, who took the job in 2003, with the resurgence. It was Grant who decided early on to aggressively cut prices on herbicides, maintain a high level of R&D spending, and, perhaps most importantly, move the company's biotech efforts towards commodity crops like corn soybean. These plants aren't ones that appear on a kitchen table. Instead, they're sold by the ton to industrial customers who convert them into processed foodstuffs. Apparently it's harder for protestors to get worked up about a genetically modified ingredient - the controversy over Monsanto's seeds has lately slowed to a crawl.

Kind of a cheerleading piece, but still worth reading. You can find it online at BusinessWeek.com.