A group of 300 organizations has demanded an investigation into the wave of agribusiness products mergers.
The group urged Jeff Sessions, the new Attorney General, to enjoin the mergers of Dow Chemical with DuPont, Monsanto with Bayer AG, and Syngenta with ChemChina on the grounds that they will drive up food and farming costs, threaten global food security, curtail innovation, threaten the health of farmworkers, and limit farmer choice.
This letter was also delivered today to members of Congress and state attorneys general. The opposition effort comes after the mergers seemed to be sailing through the U.S. with less of the scrutiny seen in Europe.
“The decline in the quality of plant breeding for conventional varieties and the corresponding increase in the use of crop chemicals will continue, as the merged companies narrow their interests yet further to a few number of products likely to bring in the greatest profit for those biotech companies. The past two decades have shown us that herbicide-resistant GMO seeds have been the favorite for companies like Monsanto, Dow and Syngenta because they boost the sale of pesticides, “said Aaron Lehman, a grain farmer and president of Iowa Farmers Union.
If all three deals were to close, the newly created companies would control nearly 70 percent of the world’s pesticide market, more than 61 percent of commercial seed sales and 80 percent of the U.S. corn-seed market. A combined Bayer AG-Monsanto company would control 70 percent of the southeast cottonseed market and could increase the price by over 18 percent, the groups charged.
DuPont CEO Ed Breen has already indicated that some pesticide lines might have to be sold to meet the demands of European regulators.
According to a release, farm groups expressed concerns during the confirmation process that Sessions would allow politics to interfere with the review of these mergers; especially given Donald Trump’s meeting with Bayer and Monsanto Executives in January and Trump’s appointment a of Dow CEO Andrew Liveris to lead the American Manufacturers Council in December.
The effort might also be a sign of increased activism among progressive groups after the inauguration of President Donald Trump and his selection of cabinet members from the ranks of big business.
Trump supporter and Iowa U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley held a hearing on the Dow-DuPont merger, but seemed to gain little traction in his efforts to question the merger. The Obama administration had not publicly objected to the mergers.
The hearing came at a time when Dow and DuPont announced the their agricultural spin-off company would be based in Delaware, not Iowa, the home of DuPont’s Pioneer seed operation.
“Conglomerates of such massive scale, breadth and reach, such as those proposed by these mergers, pose a real risk to our economy, to our agricultural sector, to public health, to food security, to the environment and to the general health of the agricultural and food business climate. Dominance of this magnitude can pose both domestic and international consequences that would be irreversible, once set in motion,” the letter stated.
