To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Tell Congress: Hold the Department of Justice accountable and stop this toxic mega-merger!
Dear Legislator,
I’m deeply concerned that the press is reporting that the Department of Justice will allow Bayer and Monsanto to merge. The evidence is clear that this merger will have detrimental impacts on farmers, businesses, workers, consumers, the environment and our food system. The Bayer-Monsanto merger is problematic on its own and given the recent mergers of Dow-DuPont and Syngenta-ChemChina, allowing the Bayer-Monsanto merger creates an oligopolistic outcome in markets for farming inputs, research, development, and technology.
This merger will significantly reduce farmer choice, decrease quality and diversity of seeds, and increase prices for farmers and consumers. The European Commission conditionally approved the Bayer Monsanto merger and now it is being reported the Department of Justice will follow. It has been reported the Justice Department decided to allow Bayer AG’s megadeal to acquire Monsanto Co., valued at more than $60 billion after the companies pledged to sell seed and treatment assets to BASF and agreed to make concessions related to digital agriculture. However, the Department of Justice has yet to confirm these reports.
We know that these behavioral and structural remedies will not be sufficient to protect farmers and consumers from the impacts of this merger. As a recent white paper from the Konkurrenz group documents, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division should not have accepted Bayer’s proposed divestiture and behavioral remedies because they will not likely restore competition in the seed, trait, and pesticide industries. I urge you to review this white paper, “An Updated Antitrust Review of the Bayer-Monsanto Merger,” which examines how behavioral and structural remedies will be ineffective with this merger.
In March, a new survey of farmers in 48 states found widespread opposition to this merger. According to the poll, of the farmers who responded:
• 93.7 percent are concerned about the proposed merger of Bayer and Monsanto (82.8 percent are very concerned/10.9 percent somewhat concerned);
• 93.7 percent of farmers are concerned that the proposed Bayer-Monsanto merger will negatively impact independent farmers and farming communities (83.9 percent are very concerned/9.8 percent somewhat concerned).
Farmers were overwhelmingly concerned that the merged company will use its dominance in one product to push sales of other products, that Bayer/Monsanto will control data about farm practices and that the merger will result in increased pressure for chemically dependent farming. Plus, farmers were concerned that the merger will increase prices, diminish quality, choice and seed varieties including availability of regionally adaptive seed, which farmers identified as critical given increasing climate variability.
Indeed, this is already happening. The case of Monsanto’s herbicide dicamba clearly shows the company already has too much power over farmers.
In 2017, Monsanto began marketing a combination of their herbicide dicamba and dicamba-tolerant (DT) GMO soybeans. The chemical is notoriously hard to contain and can travel miles when sprayed, especially in hot, dry weather. This led farmers to sue Monsanto; states investigated the damage, and Arkansas even banned dicamba’s use. Nonetheless, dicamba remains on the market and its use could double in 2018, in part because farmers who lost soybeans to dicamba in 2017 have been pressured to purchase DT seeds in 2018 to ensure their crops aren’t again destroyed by dicamba drift. This is not a hypothetical situation to illustrate the possibility of farmers’ decreased lack of choice and increased use of chemicals in agriculture -- it’s already happening.
Polling shows that Americans share farmers concerns. A poll by Public Policy Polling found that 9 in 10 Americans had serious concerns about the Bayer+Monsanto merger due to impacts on jobs, food safety, and independent farmers. It is clear from the poll that Americans want their elected officials to counter the move toward corporate monopolies. The poll found 90 percent of Americans, including 92 percent of Trump voters, believe that the Trump Administration should take a more aggressive stance towards corporate monopolies.
As the farmer survey results reflect, and literature on this issue documents, farmers have not significantly benefitted from consolidation. It will be difficult to recreate competition in the industry and approving this merger is a significant policy failure on the part of the Department of Justice. The Department should not allow this industry to further concentrate from the Big Five to Big Four.
Over one million Americans signed petitions calling on the Department of Justice to block this merger. Farmers were overwhelmingly opposed to it. I urge you to write a letter to the Department of Justice condemning reports that the Department of Justice will approve this merger and urge the Department of Justice to enforce our anti-trust ...
I’m deeply concerned that the press is reporting that the Department of Justice will allow Bayer and Monsanto to merge. The evidence is clear that this merger will have detrimental impacts on farmers, businesses, workers, consumers, the environment and our food system. The Bayer-Monsanto merger is problematic on its own and given the recent mergers of Dow-DuPont and Syngenta-ChemChina, allowing the Bayer-Monsanto merger creates an oligopolistic outcome in markets for farming inputs, research, development, and technology.
This merger will significantly reduce farmer choice, decrease quality and diversity of seeds, and increase prices for farmers and consumers. The European Commission conditionally approved the Bayer Monsanto merger and now it is being reported the Department of Justice will follow. It has been reported the Justice Department decided to allow Bayer AG’s megadeal to acquire Monsanto Co., valued at more than $60 billion after the companies pledged to sell seed and treatment assets to BASF and agreed to make concessions related to digital agriculture. However, the Department of Justice has yet to confirm these reports.
We know that these behavioral and structural remedies will not be sufficient to protect farmers and consumers from the impacts of this merger. As a recent white paper from the Konkurrenz group documents, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division should not have accepted Bayer’s proposed divestiture and behavioral remedies because they will not likely restore competition in the seed, trait, and pesticide industries. I urge you to review this white paper, “An Updated Antitrust Review of the Bayer-Monsanto Merger,” which examines how behavioral and structural remedies will be ineffective with this merger.
In March, a new survey of farmers in 48 states found widespread opposition to this merger. According to the poll, of the farmers who responded:
• 93.7 percent are concerned about the proposed merger of Bayer and Monsanto (82.8 percent are very concerned/10.9 percent somewhat concerned);
• 93.7 percent of farmers are concerned that the proposed Bayer-Monsanto merger will negatively impact independent farmers and farming communities (83.9 percent are very concerned/9.8 percent somewhat concerned).
Farmers were overwhelmingly concerned that the merged company will use its dominance in one product to push sales of other products, that Bayer/Monsanto will control data about farm practices and that the merger will result in increased pressure for chemically dependent farming. Plus, farmers were concerned that the merger will increase prices, diminish quality, choice and seed varieties including availability of regionally adaptive seed, which farmers identified as critical given increasing climate variability.
Indeed, this is already happening. The case of Monsanto’s herbicide dicamba clearly shows the company already has too much power over farmers.
In 2017, Monsanto began marketing a combination of their herbicide dicamba and dicamba-tolerant (DT) GMO soybeans. The chemical is notoriously hard to contain and can travel miles when sprayed, especially in hot, dry weather. This led farmers to sue Monsanto; states investigated the damage, and Arkansas even banned dicamba’s use. Nonetheless, dicamba remains on the market and its use could double in 2018, in part because farmers who lost soybeans to dicamba in 2017 have been pressured to purchase DT seeds in 2018 to ensure their crops aren’t again destroyed by dicamba drift. This is not a hypothetical situation to illustrate the possibility of farmers’ decreased lack of choice and increased use of chemicals in agriculture -- it’s already happening.
Polling shows that Americans share farmers concerns. A poll by Public Policy Polling found that 9 in 10 Americans had serious concerns about the Bayer+Monsanto merger due to impacts on jobs, food safety, and independent farmers. It is clear from the poll that Americans want their elected officials to counter the move toward corporate monopolies. The poll found 90 percent of Americans, including 92 percent of Trump voters, believe that the Trump Administration should take a more aggressive stance towards corporate monopolies.
As the farmer survey results reflect, and literature on this issue documents, farmers have not significantly benefitted from consolidation. It will be difficult to recreate competition in the industry and approving this merger is a significant policy failure on the part of the Department of Justice. The Department should not allow this industry to further concentrate from the Big Five to Big Four.
Over one million Americans signed petitions calling on the Department of Justice to block this merger. Farmers were overwhelmingly opposed to it. I urge you to write a letter to the Department of Justice condemning reports that the Department of Justice will approve this merger and urge the Department of Justice to enforce our anti-trust ...
Why is this important?
The Bayer and Monsanto merger would mean that only four companies control the entire market for seeds and pesticides. If the Department of Justice rubber-stamps this toxic mega-merger, it will further entrench the failing model of chemical-intensive agriculture, which is poisoning people and the planet.
We need your help to push Congress to hold the Department of Justice accountable to stop this deal NOW!
We need your help to push Congress to hold the Department of Justice accountable to stop this deal NOW!