Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, seed giant Monsanto (NYSE: MON) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Monsanto's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Monsanto facts

Headquarters (founded)

St. Louis (2000)

Market Cap

$33.8 billion

Industry

Agricultural chemicals

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$11.5 billion

Management

Chairman/CEO Hugh Grant

CFO Pierre Courduroux

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

14.8%

Cash/Debt

$1.22 billion / $2.24 billion

Dividend Yield

1.9%

Competitors

Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW)

DuPont (NYSE: DD)

Syngenta (NYSE: SYT)

Source: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 96% of the 3,000 members who have rated Monsanto believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include KCSavage and daobkid.

Earlier this year, KCSavage succinctly summed up the bull case:

MON has farmers in a head lock and control of the world's dinner plate. Lots of patents. People hate them for the reasons I like this stock. Nice little dividend too.

Over the next five years, in fact, Monsanto is expected to grow its bottom line at a solid rate of 14.3% annually. That's faster than competitors such as Dow (6.3%), DuPont (10%), and Syngenta (7.5%).

CAPS member daobkid expands on the outperform argument:

The fact is, this company (whatever your feelings on their "tactics") is an innovator in its industry. It is the Apple of the agriculture world. The stock price doesn't show it, yet, but it soon will when the market sees how the other companies have fallen behind in a lot of areas. Biggest of which, is the re-investment this company continues to provide.

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