Lorraine Chow – Monsanto, Bayer CEOs Pitch Mega-Merger to Trump

Bayer CEO Werner Baumann and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant met with Donald Trump in New York to ask the president-elect to bless the companies’ planned $66 billion mega-merger. “It was a productive meeting about the future of agriculture and the need for innovation,” a Bayer spokesman told Reuters. The German chemical giant’s pending takeover of the U.S. seedmaker would form …

Wenonah Hauter – Three Massive Mergers—Millions for One Bank and a Disaster for Food, Water and Climate

You probably learned in high school that monopolies are bad for consumers; they eliminate the field of competition in the marketplace, leaving people with fewer options and higher prices. Mega-mergers in the food and energy markets are allowing a handful of corporations to dominate market sectors. Their market dominance means that when it comes to influencing public policy, politically powerful …

PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY – VERDICT: MONSANTO AND POISON CARTEL GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST THE PLANET AND HUMANITY

The Hague, 16 October 2016: Monsanto and the Poison Cartel are guilty of crimes against our planet and humanity. This is the verdict from the People’s Assembly organized in the Hague alongside the Monsanto Tribunal. The voices of the soil, of the seeds, of farmers, consumers, and of people from all over world converged and reverberated in a new unity …

Maryam Henein – Monsanto-Bayer: The Year of Merging Dangerously

The Big Ag tech giants Monsanto — maker of Agent Orange, genetically modified seeds and weed-whacking chemicals — and Bayer — famed for manufacturing poison gas for  Nazi concentration camp use, heroin, baby aspirin and systemic pesticides — are merging. Food security advocates, consumers and non-zombies worldwide are deeply concerned. CNN Money declared the Monsanto-Bayer merger “the year’s biggest takeover.” …

Katherine Paul – Billions against Bayer: Here we come!

Bayer and Monsanto finally agreed to say “I do” yesterday (September 14), striking a $66-billion deal that Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant tried to sell as a move to improve “the lives of growers and people around the world.” Wall Street Journal reporter Jacob Bunge painted the news in a different light. Bunge implied that behind the Bayer-Monsanto buyout, a similar …

Dr. Vandana Shiva – Monsanto Merges with Bayer, “Their Expertise is War”. Shady Historical Origins, IG Farben, Part of Hitler’s Chemical Genetic Engineering Cartel

India is steeped in synthesised controversy, created by Monsanto on the first GM crop supposedly-approved for commercialisation in India. Engaged in litigation on many fronts, Monsanto is trying to subvert our Patent Law, our Plant Variety and Farmers Rights Act, our Essential Commodities Act , our Anti Monopoly Act (Competition Act). It is behaving as if there is no Parliament, …

COLIN TODHUNTER – A System of Food Production for Human Need, Not Corporate Greed

There has been an adverse trend in the food and agriculture sector in recent times with the control of seeds and chemical inputs being consolidated through various proposed mergers. If these mergers go through, it would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector. Over the past couple of decades, there has already been a restriction of choice with …

John Vidal – Farming mega-mergers threaten food security, say campaigners

* Deals would put the majority of seeds, chemicals and GM traits in the hands of three companies, deepening poverty for small-scale farmers When an Indian farmer plants his cotton crop, there’s at least a 75% chance the seeds have been been bought from a company owned by Monsanto. If a Latin American farmer sprays insecticide on her genetically engineered …

Six companies are about to merge into the biggest farm-business oligopoly in history

Big farms are about to get a lot bigger. With six agricultural giants on the verge of merging into three separate companies, consumers and farmers are feeling uneasy about the global implications and how it might impact the food system. Top executives from Bayer, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical, and Syngenta today (Sept. 20) testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee …

Nadia Prupis – Pesticide Companies’ Own Secret Tests Showed Their Products Harm Bees: Report

Agrochemical giants Syngenta and Bayer discovered in their own tests that their pesticides caused severe harm to bees, according to unpublished documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the environmental group Greenpeace. The companies conducted the trials on products that used the controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, which have long been linked to rapid bee decline. Neonics are …