Tag Archives: Agrochemical industry

Agrochemical Industry

Corporate Control

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CBAN - May 2019 - Bayer – an introductory flyer

The markets for genetically engineered (also called genetically modified or GM) crops are dominated by four seed and agrochemical companies. The high level of corporate concentration in the seed market has already meant higher prices, limited choices for farmers, a narrowing of genetic diversity in crops, and stagnating innovation.

Corporate Mergers

Between 2017 and 2018, a series of mergers took place between the largest seed and agrochemical companies in the world:

  • Dow and DuPont merged to form a new company called DowDuPont and its agricultural division is called Corteva Agriscience. Corteva is expected to become a stand-alone company in 2019.
  • China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) bought Syngenta. Syngenta now exists as a subsidiary of ChemChina.
  • Bayer acquired Monsanto for US$63-billion. Monsanto’s name was dropped, and the joint company is now called Bayer.

More mergers and changes continue. For example, the Chinese chemical company SinoChem is expected to acquire ChemChina, to create the world’s largest chemical company.

Canada and other governments had to approve the mergers before they were finalized:

Corporate Concentration

The markets for genetically engineered (also called genetically modified or GM) crops are dominated by four giant seed and agrochemical companies. Before Bayer bought Monsanto in 2018, Monsanto was the world’s largest seed and biotechnology company, and Bayer was the world’s second-largest agrochemical company. Four companies now control 67% of the global seed market and 70% of the global pesticide market.

  • The two largest seed companies, Bayer and Corteva (DowDuPont), now control 54% of the global commercial seed market.
  • The two largest agrochemical companies, Bayer and Syngenta, now control 47% of the global agrochemical market.
  • Bayer, after buying Monsanto, owns 33% of the seed market and 23% of the agrochemical market.
  • ChemChina-Syngenta now owns the largest market share of agrochemicals at 23.5%.
  • DowDuPont’s new agricultural division, Corteva Agriscience, owns 21.3% of the global seed market and 11.3% of the agrochemical market.
  • BASF now owns 12.4% of the agrochemical market, after buying assets from Bayer that Bayer was required to divest in order to purchase Monsanto. BASF now owns Bayer’s glufosinate-ammonium herbicide (brand name “Liberty”) products and the GM “Liberty Link” seeds that are tolerant to it.
  • The company FMC now owns 4.6% of the agrochemical market, after buying the pesticide assets DuPont had to sell in order to get regulatory approval from the European Union for its merger with Dow.

These companies control most of the genetic engineered seeds planted in Canada and around the world:

Of the 33 GM herbicide-tolerant crops approved for growing in Canada that could be on the market (there is no government tracking of plantings): 22 are owned by Bayer, 6 by Corteva (DowDuPont), and 3 by Syngenta (ChemChina).

In 2007, before the new mergers, the six largest seed and agrochemical companies (Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow, Monsanto, and DuPont) accounted for over 98% of all GE crop acres in the world. Monsanto’s GE traits were approximately 85% of the total GE acreage.

Between 1996, when the first GE seeds were introduced, and 2011, the market share of the world’s three largest seed companies more than doubled, from 22% to 53%. The share of the top three agrochemical companies grew from 33% to 52.5% in the same period.

Several of these companies also regularly “cross-license” or share their patented traits with each other, reinforcing their market power. About half of all commercial GM seeds with stacked traits are the result of cross-licensing between companies.

Source: ETC Group

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Agrochemical Industry, GMO's, Government

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION: THE HIDDEN AGENDA OF GENETIC MANIPULATION

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by F. William Engdahl - Reviews from Goodreads - Apr 9,2019

Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation: William F. Engdahl - Goodreads rating 4.3 out of 5

This skillfully researched book focuses on the effort of a tiny socio-political American elite to gain control over the very basis of human survival: our daily bread. Control the food and you control the people. It’s no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader into the corridors of power, into the back rooms of labs, behind closed doors of corporate boardrooms. He cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain control over food production worldwide. If it often reads as a crime story, that should be no surprise: that is what it is. Engdahl’s carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. An eye-opener and must-read for all those committed to social justice and World peace. http: //globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html

Marijan Jost, Prof of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia - Back cover: “If you want to learn why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the world - you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist…”

Anton Moser, Prof of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria - Back cover: “The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence…”.

Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute, Scotland - Back cover:” What is so frightening about Engdahl’s vision of the world is that it is so real. In this new age of ‘free markets’, everything - science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds - have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travellers.”

Related reference from Dr. Shiv Chopra’s book: “Corrupt to the Core” - back cover

Dr. Shiv Chopra’s name has become synonymous with food safety. With full support of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada - a 50,000 member union of scientific and professional public service employees. Dr. Chopra and his colleagues refused to approve various harmful drugs such as Bovine Growth Hormone, Baytril, and Revalor_H, for use in meat and milk production. They opposed a series of prime ministers and health ministers who had little or no regard for public safety. They defied gag orders, spoke publicly to the media, and testified at many Senate and parliamentary committees. The courts supported Dr. Chopra and his fellow scientists. Today, the dangers of these drugs are internationally recognized. Chopra’s fight against the totally avoidable sources of Mad Cow Disease, calling the bluff on the Anthrax scare, and warning about the myth of safe and effective vaccines are equally inspiring stories.

Here is a full account of how government corruption endangers the public food supply. This book contains a blueprint for the establishment of food safety and security: Dr. Chopra’s “Five Pillars of Food Safety,” which was presented in April 2008 to the Canadian Parliament by MP (NDP) Paul Dewar.

Seeds of Destruction Review

BONUS: VIDEO LECTURE by William Engdahl on Seeds of Destruction (93 min)

Or Youtube VIDEO LECTURE (93 min)

Agrochemical Industry, Junk Food

Big Food Wants You To Believe Obesity is Caused by Lack of Exercise not Junk Food and the Spin Is Working

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Counterpunch by Martha Rosenberg - Aug 24,2018

Big Food is increasingly targeting poor countries as “emerging markets” to please Wall Street and shareholders––perhaps because getting people fat and hooked on junk food in rich countries has plateaued.

“The single largest donor to congressional candidates was the Brazilian meat giant JBS, which gave candidates $112 million in 2014,” reports the Times about Big Food’s influence in Brazil. (JBS acquired Swift & Company, the third largest US beef and pork processor, in 2007 and slaughters an astounding 51.4 thousand head per day.) In 2014, Coca-Cola gave $6.5 million in campaign contributions in Brazil and McDonald’s donated $561,000.

A few years 
ago, Reuters reported that the World Health Organization’s Pan American Health Organization takes hundreds of thousands of dollars and “obesity” advice from junk food and soft drink companies. No wonder the advice stresses “exercise” and gives aggressive marketing to children a pass. Was anyone surprised when Coke became Mexico’s top-selling soft drink under its former president and chief executive who was also Mexico’s president, VicenteFox?

Coca-Cola has bought itself a huge economic footprint. It provides funding to the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Harvard Medical School/Partners in Health. It donates to major universities, recreation and fitness groups and organizations serving ethnic and minority groups whose members are especially challenged with obesity.

In the 2014 movie “Fed Up” Katie Couric exposed how the US government admonishes people to eat right, while pushing the foods that make them fat, and how school lunchrooms have also been bought by Big Food. The film reveals how the egg, sugar and other Big Food industries revised guidelines generated from the 1977 McGovern Report that recommended people eat less foods high in fat and sugar to favor them, overruling Sen. McGovern.

In 2006, a similar Big Food triumph occurred. Faced with the United Nations’ WHO food recommendations that were similar to the McGovern Report, then Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tommy G. Thompson actually flew to Geneva to threaten WHO that if the guidelines stood, the US would withdraw its WHO financial support. Yes––supporting agriculture is more important to the US government than the health of its people.

Read on…SOURCE

Agrochemical Industry, Bayer, Monsanto

Bayer + Monsanto = A Match Made in Hell (23 min)

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Corbettreport - June 23, 2018

TRANSCRIPT AND MP3 AUDIO: https://www.corbettreport.com/bayer/

It is hardly surprising that the first thing Bayer did after completing their takeover of Monsanto earlier this month was to announce that they were dropping the Monsanto name, merging the two companies’ agrichemical divisions under the Bayer Crop Science name. After all, as everyone knows, Monsanto is one of the most hated corporations in the world. But Bayer itself has an equally atrocious history of death and destruction. Together they are a match made in hell.

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