Dangerous monopoly on the horizon as five of the “Big 6” agricultural corporations now looking to merge

Six of the world’s biggest agricultural companies known as the “Big 6” may soon form a dangerous monopoly as interest in proposed mergers has become more pronounced in the last few years. For instance, Dow Chemical and DuPont proposed a merger in December 2015, but are slated to eventually separate their merged agriculture, materials science, and specialty products businesses into three independent and specialized firms. On the other hand, state-owned Chinese firm ChemChina offered to buy out Syngenta at a whopping $43 billion early last year. In September 2016 Bayer proposed to acquire Monsanto for $66 billion.

Antitrust authorities in the U.S. and the European Union (EU) are set to review each merger. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also noted that all three proposed mergers are also slated to undergo assessments from antitrust agencies in Australia, Canada, India, and Mexico. Both the reviews and the financial aspect of the transactions are expected to defer the completion of the mergers. The FTC noted that the U.S. antitrust law gives the agency and the Department of Justice authority to review and block mergers and acquisitions that may substantially compromise competition.

Dow and Dupont executives met with the EU competition authorities in March this year, and noted that their merger may be completed in August. A spokesperson from Syngenta gave a similar target date for their merger. On the other hand, Bayer may complete its acquisition of Monsanto later this year.

The proposed mergers and acquisition did not sit well within the agricultural sector, prompting a nationwide concern over competition and fewer choices in the marketplace.

“The reduction in competition that would be brought by a Dow-DuPont merger will result in less innovation, higher prices and less choice for farmers. The merge of Dow and DuPont, the fourth and fifth largest firms in the country, would give the resulting company about 41 percent of the market for corn seeds and 38 percent of the market for soybean seeds,” National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said in SummitDaily.com.

“If these posed mergers work like all of the past ag [sic] supply mergers that we have already experienced, it will mean that we have fewer choices in the market place. Less competition has always meant fewer buyer choices and higher prices for farmers. I don’t know of any merger, ever, in the last 40 years that has produced a benefit to a farmer…Our antitrust laws need to be updated and our enforcement needs to be brought to levels that it has not seen for a long time for us to try to begin to put competition back into the market. That is not going to be done by an administration that wants to turn big business loose from government oversight…we are now facing the most concentrated set of markets that agriculture has seen since the early 1900s, when the antitrust acts were finally implemented,” Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen added.

“Big 6” holds majority of global, U.S. agricultural market

The “Big 6” currently holds 60 percent of the global market for agricultural products including seeds, pesticides, and herbicides. In the U.S., four of the largest agricultural firms accounted for a 25 percent increase in corn seed sales across the country, from only 60 percent in 2000 to 85 percent in 2015. These firms were also responsible for a significant increase in soybean sales between 51 to 76 percent during the same period.

Should the merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont come into play, the resulting company is expected to hold 41 percent of the market for corn seeds and 38 percent of the market for soybean seeds.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service also revealed that the “Big 6” accounted for a 91 percent share in cotton sales, with Monsanto and Bayer being the two biggest sellers of cottonseed. (Related: This is how the Bayer-Monsanto merger will affect the market)

Sources include: 

ERS.USDA.gov

SummitDaily.com

Monsanto and other biotech chemical giants just OUTLAWED seed exchanges in Africa … Seed colonization is nearly complete

Monsanto has become infamous for covering up the connection between glyphosate – which constitutes 50 percent of its Roundup weed killer product – and cancer, particularly non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. When the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined in 2015 that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans,” there was an immediate backlash against the company and multiple lawsuits have ensued. Unfortunately, distributing cancer-causing herbicides all over the world is far from this agricultural giant’s only sin. Monsanto and fellow Big Agri villains like Syngenta have quietly been destroying global crop diversity, placing themselves in a position where they are poised to control the entire planet’s food supply.

While the colonization of Africa is supposed to be nothing more than an unfortunate chapter in the history of the continent, the reality is that it has just taken on a different guise. The international aid programs upon which the continent has become reliant are forcing many African countries to become totally dependent on patented seeds supplied by Monsanto, Syngenta and others. In terms of these agreements, the people in these countries may no longer engage in the traditional seed exchanges which have been a part of their cultures for generations.

In Tanzania, for example, new laws have been passed which could mean that anybody selling or even giving patented seeds to friends or neighbors could be subject to fines of up to €205,300 – more than most African people can earn in a lifetime. A simple seed exchange could even land someone in jail for up to 12 years, all to protect the intellectual property rights of agri giants thousands of miles away.

“If you buy seeds from Syngenta or Monsanto under the new legislation, they will retain the intellectual property rights,” explains Michael Farrelly of TOAM, a movement advocating for organic farming in Africa. “If you save seeds from your first harvest, you can use them only on your own piece of land for non-commercial purposes. You’re not allowed to share them with your neighbors or with your sister-in-law in a different village, and you cannot sell them for sure. But that’s the entire foundation of the seed system in Africa.” [Related: For more stories like this visit Twisted.news.]

Though it would seem like African leaders are selling their own people down the river, they really don’t have much choice but to pass legislation like this. Such laws are required in terms of a group of G8 agreements which promise aid only if these companies’ intellectual property rights are jealously guarded.

“As a result, the farmers’ seed system will collapse, because they can’t sell their own seeds,” warns Janet Maro of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT). “Multinationals will provide our country with seeds and all the farmers will have to buy them from them. That means that we will lose biodiversity, because it is impossible for them to investigate and patent all the seeds we need. We’re going to end up with fewer types of seeds.”

Tanzania became the beneficiary of one of these G8 blackmail schemes in 2012, when it began receiving assistance under the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN) program. This initiative, which is backed by the E.U., U.K., U.S., World Bank and, of course, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, promised to lift 50 million people out of poverty in 10 different African countries by means of a public-private partnership.

While schemes like these appear brilliant on the surface, the reality is that they give a handful of globalist corporations control of an entire continent by making it wholly dependent on aid, and by moving its people further and further away from their traditional subsistence lifestyles.

Of course, the Tanzanian government insists the new law is there to protect the local farmers so that they can patent their own seeds. As if a nation of people living in poverty without money or access to legal resources would even think of doing that.

Sources for this article include:

WakingTimes.com

MO.be

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