Three big mergers among the world’s largest seed and agricultural chemical companies are under way or proposed — Bayer and Monsanto, ChemChina and Syngenta, and Dow and DuPont — creating concerns among growers of fewer choices and higher prices when they go shopping. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Harvest Public Media, “I’m not going to respond directly to particular business transactions.”
“It’s incumbent upon the Department of Agriculture, our research service and others, to make sure that we support diversity within agriculture, that we continue to look for ways in which we can diversify operators, size of operations, what’s being produced, and maintain choice, maintain options,” Vilsack said during a visit to Fort Collins, Colorado.
In making public its offer of $62 billion for Monsanto, the largest seed company in the world, Bayer indicated the merger had been under discussion since April 18 at the very least. “The combination would create a truly global agriculture leader with a comprehensive and balanced product line across business segments and geographies. This would bring together Monsanto’s leadership in Seeds & Traits with Bayer’s leadership in Crop Protection and Biologics, and our combined focus on Digital Farming,” said Bayer chairman Werner Baumann in a letter to Monsanto chief executive Hugh Grant.
In a release, Bayer said Saint Louis, now the headquarters for Monsanto, would become the home city for a branch of the new, massive company. “Under the proposed transaction, the combined business would … have its global Seeds & Traits and North American commercial headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, its global Crop Protection and divisional Crop Science headquarters in Monheim, Germany, and an important presence in Durham, North Carolina, as well as many other locations throughout the U.S. and around the world. Digital Farming for the combined business would be based near San Francisco, California.”