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Farmers plough and sow cotton seeds in a field in Shahpur village, India © Amit Dave

American agrochemical giant Monsanto has threatened to pull out of India and hold back new genetically modified cotton technologies if the government continues its “arbitrary and potentially destructive” interventions that seek to cut the company’s royalty fees.

Last year the Indian government issued an order to control cotton seed prices effective from the 2016-17 crop year. In a ruling, the antitrust regulator, Competition Commission of India, accused the GMO giant of potentially abusing its dominant position on the market. The Agriculture Ministry set up a special committee tasked with implementing brackets for seed price along with royalty fees, after the completion of an investigation into the matter.

Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (MMB), a joint venture with India’s Mahyco, licenses its products to a number of local seed companies in exchange for royalties. The company also sells seeds directly though the local licensees.

All in all the US subsidiary control some 90 percent of the market, as the agricultural biotechnology corporation serves over seven million cotton farmers in India.

However the new government commission is keen to reduce the price of the crop after local seeds companies filed complaints that MMB was charging high fees to sub-license BT cotton seed technology since 2002. The government is reportedly planning to reduce the royalties of its genetically modified cotton seeds by 70 percent.

Monsanto has challenged the government order in Delhi High Court which asked the American monopolist to pay compensation to farmers, threatening to leave the Indian market.

“If the committee recommends imposing a sharp, mandatory cut in the trait fees paid on BT-cotton seeds, MMBL will have no choice but to re-evaluate every aspect of our position in India,” Monsanto India Region CEO Shilpa Divekar said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Monsanto is Suing California for Telling People the Truth About Its Chemicals

March 4, 2016

Monsanto is Suing California for Telling People the Truth About Its Chemicals

(ANTIMEDIA) California — Monsanto is suing the State of California for its intent to include glyphosate — the main ingredient in its wildly popular herbicide, Roundup — on its Proposition 65 toxic chemicals list.

California’s decision came after the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” in March 2015. Researchers discovered “limited evidence” of a link between the weedkiller and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans, as well as “convincing evidence” of its link to other forms of cancer in rodents. Thus, IARC decided unanimously that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.”

California announced in September it would include glyphosate among the noxious chemicals under Prop 65, which “mandates notification and labeling of all known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm, and prohibits their discharge into drinking waters of the state,” Alternet summarized.

Monsanto has pushed back against the classification by the IARC from the beginning. Glyphosate-laden Roundup remains the most heavily used herbicide on the planet — despite an ever-widening list of nations implementing whole or partial bans on the substance.

Indeed, Center for Food Safety believes the addition of glyphosate to the Prop 65 list is so imperative, Alternet reports the organization filed a motion to intervene in the Monsanto lawsuit on Wednesday:

“CFS was one of the first public interest organizations to raise awareness about how the use of glyphosate in Roundup Ready crop systems fosters herbicide-resistant weeds and increases the use of the herbicide and the detrimental effects associated with it, and has repeatedly sought to prevent the planting and approval of glyphosate-resistant, genetically engineered crops through federal litigation.”

Echoing concerns of an increasingly knowledgeable public, CFS believes in transparency and the right to be informed of risks from being exposed to toxic substances.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Monsanto and the Heirloom Seed

February 4, 2016

Seeds in baggies

MONSANTO AND THE HEIRLOOM SEED

“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. “Control food and you control the people.”

World food control is almost in place thanks to the reduction of seed diversity with genetically modified seeds being distributed by only a few transnational corporations. Genetic engineering has made proprietary control through the use of intellectual property rights possible over the seeds on which the world’s food supply depends on. To cover these costs, food prices are raised.

Monsanto is a leading corporation in agribusiness has been gradually taking over smaller heirloom seeds suppliers in addition to trademarks acquisition of a number of heirloom seeds. This started several years ago and it’s continuing. There’s significant probability that when buying seeds from a local store, one may get a genetically modified product.

Monsanto was formed in 1901, that’s more than a century ago, in the year. Throughout the ages, Monsanto has emerged and secured its reputation as a face of corporate evil. Demonstrations have been held globally by environmental activists and when Monsanto introduced Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) seeds. Monsanto modifies a plant or crop artificially, making it immune to a specific, all-purpose poison through genetic engineering. It’s expected that the modified crop stays safe with the use of pesticides while everything else is killed.

SAMSUNG CSC

THE MONSANTO CONTROVERSY

The controversy that lies with Monsanto is not recent; the company used to be a chemical company which produced Agent Orange and its main poison, Dioxin. The company was also involved in selling DDT, dairy cow hormone rBGH, the carcinogenic Aspartame sweetener, and PCBs in the past.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Corporations are Being Removed From the Food Supply

February 1, 2016

HOW THE CORPORATIONS ARE BEING REMOVED FROM THE FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

“Industrial agriculture has created a complex system of interlocking oligopolies that spans seeds, agrochemicals, biotechnology, trading, and retailing and consumer goods companies.”

The Poverty of Capitalism

The above quote is made by John Hilary, director of the NGO War on Want sums it all in his recent book The Poverty of Capitalism. The industrial food system is characterized by economic focus through an outgrowth of a long and on-going process that has allowed major agribusinesses—companies that supply the chemicals, seeds, equipment and services that are critical to industrial farms—to greatly determine and influence the modern food system. It’s estimated that in 2004 only 8% of farms in the US accounted for 72% of sales.

Further, the top ten seed firms were estimated to control the entire world seed market and the top ten agrochemical corporations controlled 84% of the $30 billion agrochemical market. Further, only six corporations – Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer and BASF – control 75% of the world pesticides market, Factory farms now account for 72 percent of poultry production, 43 percent of egg production, and 55 percent of pork production worldwide and only four corporations – ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus – control more than 75% of the global grain trade who overwhelmingly push commodity crops like corn and soy on local farmers at the expense of native crops.

The major aim of most of these agri-corporations the world over is to earn profit through their operations. They are more concerned with their own interests and not those of the public. The policies of these organizations are usually profit oriented. The underlying policy is profit making leaving other superficial benefits constant. With the hegemony of transnational food corporations, food production has been reduced to becoming a model of profit generation instead of producing quality food production. Food is considered to be one of the basic requirements for humans to survive, and agriculture is one of the largest employers/ occupations in the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Monsanto’s Roundup Kills and Damages More than Weeds

February 1, 2016

Monsanto’s Roundup Kills and Damages More than Weeds

shutterstock_109675235 (1)

Protests against Monsanto’s Roundup, with its poisonous, weed-killing glyphosate, have spread around the globe. An arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a probable cause of cancer in 2015. California’s Environmental Protection Agency (CA EPA) recently decided to label it as such.

Environmental groups and activists in Northern California, a region known for its wines, advocate a moratorium on this herbicide as health concerns mount. Roundup is the world’s most widely used pesticide.

Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, was the focus of a January 28 informational event. It was initiated by the Watertrough Childrens Alliance as a fundraiser for a lawsuit against winemaker Paul Hobbs for converting an apple orchard into a vineyard adjacent to schools, thus putting the health of around 500 children at risk by spraying Roundup. The Sierra Club, Sonoma Group, co-sponsored the evening.

Sebastopol Mayor Sarah Glade Gurney welcomed a panel of three experts and around 60 people from Sonoma and Napa counties attended and moderated an active discussion. Attorney Jonathan Evans of the Tucson, Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, organizer Ella Teevan of the Washington, D.C.-based Food and Water Watch (FWW), and former Petaluma Vice-Mayor and City Council member Tiffany Renee spoke.

Monsanto also makes Roundup Ready, which are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). “93% of soy beans and 80% of corn in the U.S. are grown with Monsanto GMO seeds,” reported Teevan. “Food and Water Watch wants a moratorium on more GMOs and their labeling.”

“Our food system and how we interact with our environment is broken. Instead of serving people, profit is served. We need to fix our food system,” Teevan added.

“Glyphosate has become a pervasive presence in the environment. 65% of water in some countries has traces of it,” said Evans. “Exposure can create a number of problems, including liver and kidney damage. It can even change ones DNA. Our goal is to protect health and keep these products out of the market.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ultimate Weapon in Existential Struggle: Using the TPP for Hostile Takeover of Mexican Agriculture

November 23, 2015

Ultimate Weapon in Existential Struggle: Using the TPP for Hostile Takeover of Mexican Agriculture

Resisting Monsanto, the world’s largest, most influential GMO giant, is an almost impossible task. The corporation boasts more back channels and revolving doors with national governments and regulators than just about any other company on the planet, not to mention a fearsome army of corporate lawyers and lobbyists.

Few countries are more aware of this fact than Mexico, where a small collective of activist groups, scientists, artists and gourmet chefs have been engaged in a titanic legal struggle with Monsanto. Although they keep winning crucial battles, the war is still likely to be won by Monsanto, thanks to one key weapon in its arsenal: the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

An Existential Struggle

For Mexican smallholders and consumers, the struggle with Monsanto & Friends is an existential one. In a 2013 ruling banning the cultivation of GMOs in Mexico, Judge Manuel Zaleta cited the potential risks to the environment posed by GMO corn. If the biotech industry got its way, he argued, more than 7000 years of indigenous maize cultivation in Mexico would be endangered, with the country’s 60 varieties of corn directly threatened by cross-pollination from transgenic strands.

In the last two years scores of appeals were brought against Zaleta’s ruling by the likes of Monsanto, Syngenta, and Dupont as well as Mexico’s Ministries of Agriculture and Environment. All of them were quashed. But then in August this year, a judge with a more sympathetic ear overturned Zaleta’s ruling [read… Mexican Gourmet Chefs Sharpen Knives in Global Food War]. The resistance, it seemed, had finally crumbled.

But a lot can happen in three months. In early November, federal judge Benjamin Soto Sánchez “upheld a provisional suspension prohibiting federal agencies from processing and granting the privilege of sowing or releasing into the environment of transgenic maize in the country.” In other words, Monsanto & Friends were back to square one.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EPA Used Monsanto’s Research to Give Roundup a Pass

November 4, 2015

EPA Used Monsanto’s Research to Give Roundup a Pass

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY concluded in June that there was “no convincing evidence” that glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. and the world, is an endocrine disruptor.

On the face of it, this was great news, given that some 300 million poundsof the chemical were used on U.S. crops in 2012, the most recent year measured, and endocrine disruption has been linked to a range of serious health effects, including cancer, infertility, and diabetes. Monsanto, which sells glyphosate under the name Roundup, certainly felt good about it. “I was happy to see that the safety profile of one of our products was upheld by an independent regulatory agency,” wrote Steve Levine on Monsanto’s blog.

But the EPA’s exoneration — which means that the agency will not require additional tests of the chemical’s effects on the hormonal system — is undercut by the fact that the decision was based almost entirely on pesticide industry studies. Only five independently funded studies were considered in the review of whether glyphosate interferes with the endocrine system. Twenty-seven out of 32 studies that looked at glyphosate’s effect on hormones and were cited in the June review — most of which are not publicly available and were obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request — were either conducted or funded by industry. Most of the studies were sponsored by Monsanto or an industry group called the Joint Glyphosate Task Force. One study was by Syngenta, which sells its own glyphosate-containing herbicide, Touchdown.

Findings of Harm Were Dismissed

Who pays for studies matters, according to The Intercept’s review of the evidence used in the EPA’s decision. Of the small minority of independently funded studies that the agency considered in determining whether the chemical poses a danger to the endocrine system, three of five found that it did.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In the Public Interest: Monsanto and Its Promoters vs. Freedom of Information

October 4, 2015

In the Public Interest: Monsanto and Its Promoters vs. Freedom of Information

A protester holds a placard during a march in New York. (Waywuwei / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Next year, the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) will celebrate its 50th anniversary as one of the finest laws our Congress has ever passed. It is a vital investigative tool for exposing government and corporate wrongdoing.

The FOIA was championed by Congressman John E. Moss (D-CA), who strove to “guarantee the right of every citizen to know the facts of his Government.” Moss, with whom I worked closely as an outside citizen advocate, said that “without the fullest possible access to Government information, it is impossible to gain the knowledge necessary to discharge the responsibilities of citizenship.”

All fifty states have adopted FOIA statutes.

As the FOIA approaches its 50th year, it faces a disturbing backlash from scientists tied to the agrichemical company Monsanto and its allies. Here are some examples.

On March 9th, three former presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – all with ties to Monsanto or the biotech industry – wrote in the pages of the Guardian to criticize the use of the state FOIA laws to investigate taxpayer-funded scientists who vocally defend Monsanto, the agrichemical industry, their pesticides, and genetically engineered food. They called the FOIAs an “organized attack on science.”

The super-secretive Monsanto has stated, regarding the FOIAs, that “agenda-driven groups often take individual documents or quotes out of context in an attempt to distort the facts, advance their agenda, and stop legitimate research.”

Advocates with the venerable Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) do worry that the FOIA can be abused to harass scientists for ideological reasons. This is true; for example, human-caused global warming deniers have abused the FOIA against climate scientists working at state universities like Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The GMO Puppetmasters of Academia: What the NYT Left Out

September 9, 2015

The GMO Puppetmasters of Academia: What the NYT Left Out

“Reading the emails make(s) me want to throw up” tweeted the Food Babe after reading a lengthy series of them posted online by the NY Times on Sept 5th. The emails in question result from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and are posted in the side bars of a front-page article by Times reporter Eric Lipton (“Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show”).

The article is highly disturbing, but, as the Food Babe implied, theTimes buried the real story. The real scoop was not the perfidy and deceit of a handful of individual professors. Buried in the emails is proof positive of active collusion between the agribusiness and chemical industries, numerous and often prominent academics, PR companies, and key administrators of land grant universities for the purpose of promoting GMOs and pesticides. In particular, nowhere does the Times note that one of the chief colluders was none other than the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

All this is omitted entirely, or buried in hard-to-notice side bars, which are anyway unavailable to print readers. So, here is the article Eric Lipton should have written.

First, the Lipton Story

The Lipton article seems, at first sight, to be impressive reporting. Lipton describes how Kevin Folta, Chair of the Dept. of Horticulture at the University of Florida secretly took expenses and $25,000 of unrestricted money from Monsanto to promote GMO crops. On behalf of the biotech industry, or via the PR firm Ketchum, Folta wrote onwebsites and attended public events, trainings, lobbying efforts and special missions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

No scientific evidence of GM food safety

July 14, 2015

No scientific evidence of GM food safety

It is “premature” to declare GM safe due to “incomplete” scientific knowledge, finds report commissioned by Norwegian Environment Agency

A new study commissioned by the Norwegian government, and conducted by a nationally recognised scientific authority on the safety of biotechnologies, concludes that available scientific data on GM crops is inadequate to prove their safety.

The scientific report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and completed last year, before being publicly released in June by the Genok Centre for Biosafety, located in the Arctic University of Norway. The Genok Centre is a nationally-designated centre of competence on biosafety issues.

Absence of evidence

The new study analyses a dossier by giant agribusiness conglomerate, Monsanto, submitted to the Brazilian government, and also conducts a comprehensive review of the available scientific literature from other sources.

Its focus is on Monsanto’s GM soybean Intacta Roundup Ready 2 Pro, which is grown in Brazil, and also authorised in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and probably also present in Bolivia due to illegal introductions from neighbouring countries.

The report, titled ‘Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops’ concludes that due to major gaps in the scientific literature, it is not possible to give a scientific verdict on their safety. Monsanto’s dossier, the report concludes, demonstrates a range of methodological weaknesses, and highlights the problem of incomplete information and research on GM crops in the available literature.

According to Monsanto, genetically modified organisms do not harm human or animal health, and therefore do not have any adverse effects on crops and the environment.

But according to the new Norwegian study:

“Contrary to this assertion, the literature provides indications of harmful and adverse effects to the environment and to health (both animal and human), as well as to socio-economic conditions, particularly over the medium- and long-term.”

The new study is authored by Georgina Catacora-Vargas, a researcher at the Agroecology Centre (AGRUCO) at the Faculty of Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Sciences, University Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Catacora-Vargas was until recently technical biosafety advisor at Bolivia’s Vice-Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry Management.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

GMOs and the Neoliberal Apologists

June 16, 2015

GMOs and the Neoliberal Apologists

Ignoring Reality, Subverting Morality

Monsanto is often called one of the most ‘evil’ companies on the planet. It has a history of knowingly contaminating the environment and food with various poisons, cover ups and criminality (see this, outlining the company’s appalling history). In recent times, there has been much focus on its promotion and patenting of GMOs, the deleterious impacts of its glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup and how GMOs pose a threat to human and animal health, ecology and the environment (see this, for example).

Campaigners and activists have described how global agribusiness players like Monsanto are threatening food security and food democracy. Monsanto and others have been able to capture or unduly influence government regulatory/policy agendas, important trade deals and global trade policies via the WTO. Monsanto is a major player and wields enormous political influence and receives significant political support.

Little wonder then that we now have campaigns specifically targeting Monsanto. While it is laudable and correct to highlight the actions of Monsanto and indeed its partners like The Gates Foundation, we should not be side tracked from developing a wider analysis to understand the underlying forces that drive companies like Monsanto.

A recent piece by Christina Sarich shows that any shares held by Gates or the individuals at the top of the Monsanto corporate structure like CEO High Grant or CTO Robb Fraley are dwarfed by those held by institutional shareholders, such as Vanguard, Capital Research and State Street.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Monsanto and the Subjugation of India

June 14, 2015

Monsanto and the Subjugation of India

Control the Food, Control the State

After a study of GMOs over a four-year plus period, India’s multi-party Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture recommended a ban on GM food crops stating they had no role in a country of small farmers. The Supreme Court appointed a technical expert committee (TEC), which recommended an indefinite moratorium on the field trials of GM crops until the government devised a proper regulatory and safety mechanism. As yet, no such mechanism exists, but open field trials are being given the go ahead. GMO crops approved for field trials include rice, maize, chickpea, sugarcane, and brinjal.

The only commercially grown genetically modified (GM) crop gown in India at this time is Bt cotton. It is hardly the resounding success story the pro-GMO lobby would like us to believe.

Pushpa M Bhargava is founder director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India. Writing in the Hindustan Times, he states that

* Bt cotton is far from having been an unqualified success in India. It has worked only in irrigated areas and not in rain-fed regions that represent two-thirds of the area under cotton cultivation in the country.

* Out of over 270,000 farmers’ suicides, Bt cotton farmers constitute a substantial number.

* In Andhra Pradesh, there have been deaths of thousands of cattle that grazed on the remnants of Bt cotton plants after harvesting of cotton.

* Resistance to pests in Bt cotton has developed over the years. There has also been a marked increase in the number of secondary pests such as mealy bug.

* The soil where Bt cotton has been grown over a prolonged period has become incapable of sustaining any other crop.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Chilling Thing an Industry Insider Said about Glyphosate, GMOs, and Why He Sold His Conventional Seeds Company

May 27, 2015

The Chilling Thing an Industry Insider Said about Glyphosate, GMOs, and Why He Sold His Conventional Seeds Company

Dan Romig, who along with his father co-founded Trigen Seed LLC in 1993 and bloodstresold to Limagrain Cereal Seeds in 2010, is an insider in the seeds industry. His father was head of R&D at Northrup King, a subsidiary of Syngenta, which Monsanto is currently trying to acquire.

The combined Monsanto-Syngenta behemoth would control a third of the globe’s seed and pesticides markets.

Among the controversies surrounding Roundup, Monsanto’s flagship product, and largest selling weed killer in the world, there is this one: the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a component of the UN’s World Health Organization, declared that glyphosate, one of the active ingredients in Roundup, is “probably carcinogenic.”

Don Quijones, in his article on WOLF STREET, Monsanto Bites Back, vivisected the implications of the Monsanto-Syngenta deal and issues surrounding glyphosate.

Dan Romig then commented on the article from his insider point of view, and in doing so also told the story of his company and why they ended up selling it. It’s a chilling, insightful, and important read:

By Dan Romig:

Glyphosate is now being used by grain producers to desiccate their fields before harvest. Four days before running the combine, growers spray their fields to kill weeds and their plants in order to have an easier harvest. But in so doing, glyphosate then enters the final product (wheat, barley, oats, and others). Almost every human being has it in their bloodstream.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff [Senior Research Scientist at MIT] has led the way in research on what this does to a person. As glyphosate gets into the digestive tract, it kills much of the beneficial bacteria and produces intestinal permeability, or ‘leaky gut syndrome.’ It also chelates minerals such as aluminum, and then ‘cages’ the aluminum which goes into the bloodstream, and finally ends up in the pineal gland. Look at the correlation between when RoundUp was invented in 1970, put into mass use around 1979 and then unleashed into GMO crops in the late 1990’s, and the rise in Alzheimer’s and autism among other neurological disorders.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Case for Nationalizing Monsanto

May 25, 2015

The Case for Nationalizing Monsanto

Ridding the world of Monsanto via a state buy-out would be a boon to humanity.

Capitalism fails in two situations: monopoly and state-capital cronyism. Monopoly extinguishes competition and that effectively extinguishes capitalism.

When the elites of the state and private capital collude, i.e. crony capitalism, the few gain power and wealth at the expense of the many.

The state (broadly speaking, government) fails when it serves the few at the expense of the many, while claiming to serve the interests of the many. The state only fulfills its purpose when it serves the interests of the many at the expense of the few who control the majority of the political power and private wealth.

Monsanto is the epitome of monopoly and crony-state collusion. But Monsanto’s grip is not only on the throat of the nation– through its monopoly on seeds that it enforces globally, its grip is strangling the entire world.

Monopolies on food, energy and water (what I term the FEW resources) are not like monopolies on discretionary goods and services. People have to pay whatever the monopoly charges, as substitutes are either unavailable, very expensive or under the control of the same cartel/quasi-monopoly.

Before Monsanto extended its grip as the state-enforced seed monopoly, state universities and extension services developed seed strains and provided the seeds for a nominal cost. Over time, this publicly owned and managed system of providing low-cost seeds has eroded under pressure from for-profit private firms such as Monsanto and the benign neglect of a government that has been captured by private interests and self-serving elites.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Monsanto Bites Back

May 25, 2015

Monsanto Bites Back

Monsanto, the U.S. agribusiness giant that controls a quarter of the entire global seed market, could soon be even bigger and more powerful than it already is, following renewed speculation over its interest in Swiss agrichemicals firm Syngenta. The logic behind the deal is clear: Monsanto ranks as the world’s largest purveyor of seeds while Swiss-based Syngenta is the world’s largest pesticide and fertilizer company.

A Monsanto-Syngenta tie-up would “deliver substantial synergies that create value for shareholders of both companies”, said Monsanto president and COO, Brett Begemann, adding that cash from these side deals would make an acquisition easier to finance. It would also be the largest-ever acquisition of a European company by a U.S. rival.

The target, Syngenta, seems somewhat less enthusiastic. It is the second time in as many weeks that Monsanto has tabled an unsolicited offer for its Swiss competitor. The first time, on May 8, Syngenta politely but firmly rebuffed Monsanto, saying that the offered price of $45 billion undervalued the company. In response to the latest offer Syngenta said a sell-off of its seeds business would not be enough to allay regulators’ concerns about the tie-up.

The 2 C’s: Consolidation and Concentration

If the deal is consummated, the two companies combined would form a singular agribusiness behemoth that controls a third of both the globe’s seed and pesticides markets, as Mother Jones reports:

To make the deal fly with US antitrust regulators, Syngenta would likely have to sell off its substantial corn and soybean seed business, as well its relatively small glyphosate holdings, in order to avoid direct overlap with Monsanto’s existing market share, the financial website Seeking Alpha reports.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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