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Justice Department official targets ag industry mergers

The new head of the Justice Department’s Anti-Trust Division indicates agriculture will be one of her top priorities.

Christine Varney recently spoketo the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. According to Agri-Pulse, Varney told the group she would be reviewing Justice Department decisions involving the agricultural sector in the last eight years. Varney said she’s open to taking a retroactive look at recently completedmergers, specifically mentioning Monsanto’s acquisition of top cottonseed producer Delta and Pineland in 2007.

Varney also expressed her intent to investigate dairy pricing. The Center for American Progress—or C-A-P—has been urging anti-trust regulators to become moreproactive in investigating what it calls “the exclusionary and exploitive conduct” of the major buyers of farm commodities—especially in dairy, livestock and poultry. CAP also urges a stricter approach to mergers involving ag input suppliers like seed and fertilizer. It argues that in noother market has “lack of enforcement” affected producers as severely as in agriculture.