Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Glassley of Iowa said he would hold a hearing next month on “a wave of consolidation among seed and chemical producers, including the merger of Dow and DuPont,” the Des Moines Register reported. The announcement came one day after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the $43 billion merger of ChemChina and Swiss-based Syngenta, which has significant operations in the United States.
“Because of the importance of the seed and chemical industries to agriculture and the nation’s economy, the Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to hold a hearing in late September,” Grassley told reporters, according to the Register. “The hearing will focus on the transactions currently being reviewed by antitrust regulations and the current trend in consolidation in the seed and chemical industries.”
In addition to ChemChina and Syngenta, Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, is being courted by Bayer AG, and DuPont has agreed to a $130-billion deal with Dow Chemical. The paper pointed out that if all the deals go through, “the seed and chemical sector would be left with just four major players — including one owned by the Chinese government — which Grassley and others fear could not only lead to higher prices for farmers but stifle innovation.”