Bunge’s proposed merger with Glencore’s Viterra would be the largest grain trading deal in over a decade, creating a global agricultural commodity goliath to rival industry leaders Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill.
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As poultry corporations face price- and wage-fixing scandals, Cargill and Continental Grain want to further consolidate the industry.
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America has a railroad monopoly problem, but merging the smallest Class I carriers won’t solve it.
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The world is eating more farmed fish, and global grain traders intend to control the fish feeding business much as they control the feeding of other farm animals.
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Last week, Congress passed the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, a.k.a, “the Farm Bill.” While Democrats managed to evade Republican efforts to add work requirements to SNAP benefits, this Farm Bill otherwise maintains a status quo that pushes farms to get big or get out, promotes exports over supply management, and benefits agribusiness interests.
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Last week, after the Trump administration struck a deal with Canada and Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, the White House declared victory for US farmers, who gained greater access to Canadian dairy, egg, poultry, and wheat markets. Unfortunately, the new deal called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, also includes lesser-known provisions that could allow agribusiness corporations to patent Mexico’s native corn varieties and challenge the country’s ban on genetically modified (GM) corn cultivation.
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Last year, the Nebraska Rural Response Hotline, which connects farmers and ranchers with legal, financial, and mental health services, set four monthly records for the number of new callers in financial distress. This spike reflects the broader hardship facing rural Americans in the midst of what some are calling the new farm crisis.
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On Thursday, Bayer closed its $62.5 billion purchase of Monsanto. This comes roughly a week after the Department of Justice (DOJ) approved the merger, on the condition that the corporations sell off $9 billion worth of assets, including seed divisions, intellectual property, research projects, and more. Yet even after these divestitures, the combined entity will be the largest global seed and agrochemical corporation, and U.S. based field crop growers fear the power of the new combine.
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In the fall of 2016, the German drug, seed, and crop chemicals conglomerate Bayer announced plans to merge with the U.S. chemical and bio-tech seed giant Monsanto. Hoping to overcome objections from European anti-trust regulators, Bayer is promising to sell off its vegetable seed business to BASF, a German corporation that is currently the largest chemical maker in the world.
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Since it was acquired in 2013 by the Chinese company WH Group, pork giant Smithfield has moved steadily to consolidate power over its supply chain. The company’s most recent purchase targeted grain elevators in Harpster and Morral, Ohio. This means Smithfield can now ship grains directly from Ohio to its feedlots in North Carolina. These acquisitions also serve to further the Chinese government’s power in the American food system.
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