Nearly 325 organizations have signed a letter pressing new U-S Attorney General Jeff Sessions to make sure the Justice Department does its job without political interference when it looks at a proposal to let Dow Chemical and DuPont, Monsanto and Bayer, and Syngenta and ChemChina merge. Tiffany Finck-Haynes with Friends of the Earth says they want Congress to provide oversight because President Trump met with the C-E-Os of Monsanto just before he was inaugurated.
The letter says 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. Trump has said the mergers would create jobs and boost the U-S economy.
Joe Maxwell, executive director for the Organization for Competitive Markets, says big mergers are bad for the environment, small farmers, rural communities and consumers. He says because of what’s happening with climate change, we need more diversified and competitive development.
Lisa Griffith, interim director for the National Family Farm Coalition, says when these mergers happen, prices go up and some seed varieties disappear.
Those signing the letter include: the Biosafety Alliance, Midwest Pesticide Action Center, the Center for Food Safety and Mom’s Across America.