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Ag companies defend planned mergers
Five of the six ag companies seeking to consolidate into three have told the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning that they are driven to innovate to survive and that will not change if the deals are approved.
Robb Fraley, executive vice president of Monsanto which has agreed to be purchased by Bayer, says the two companies won’t cause any anti-competition problems, “You know, these are complementary companies that have very different R&D programs. Ours are seeds and traits and data science and Bayer operates in crop chemicals. So, one of the attractions is that the deal has very little overlap.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and members of the committee said that any one of these proposed deals, taken by itself, would not be as challenging as all of them happening together.
“I’m afraid that this consolidation wave may have become a tsunami.”
Absent from the hearing was ChemChina, in a deal to purchase Syngenta.
As an urban farmer, I have great concern for my fellow farmers (rural and urban) who practice sustainable methods of food cultivation. The income of farmers in the U.S. has declined dramatic making it difficult for them to make a decent living, maintain their farms and provide for their families. In addition, there has already been problems of obtaining and saving non-gmo seeds because of agricultural laws banning seed exchanging with large corporate entities placing seed patents on products so farmers and consumers have no control over the food they cultivate and or consume. A merger like this one has the potential to eliminate small farming businesses due to ologopolies and monopolies on the seed market and ultimately endangering food security.