Six multinational companies dominate the agricultural input market, and they’re in cahoots.
Market share pesticide companiesWhen a handful of corporations own the world’s seed, pesticide and biotech industries, they control the fate of food and farming. Between them, Monsanto, Dow, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont control the global seed, pesticide and agricultural biotechnology markets. This kind of historically unprecedented power over world agriculture enables them to:
* control the agricultural research agenda;
* dictate trade agreements & agricultural policies;
* position their technologies as the “science-based” solution to increase crop yields, feed the hungry and save the planet;
* escape democratic & regulatory controls;
* subvert competitive markets;
…and in the process, intimidate, impoverish and disempower farmers, undermine food security and make historic profits - even in the midst of a global food crisis.
Sample Cartel Agreements:
Monsanto & BASF announce a $1.5 billion R&D collaboration involving 60/40 profit-sharing. (March 2007)
Monsanto & Dow Agrichemicals join forces to develop the first-ever GE maize loaded with 8 genetic traits, for release in 2010. (Sept. 2007)
Monsanto & Syngenta call a truce on outstanding litigation related to global maize & soybean interests, forge new cross-licensing agreements. (May 2008)
Syngenta & DuPont announce a joint agreement, broadening each company's pesticide product portfolios (June 2008) Source: ETC report, “Who Owns Nature?"
What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain. —Robert Fraley, co-president of Monsanto's agricultural sector
According to the UN, corporate concentration of the agricultural input market “has far-reaching implications for global food security, as the privatization and patenting of agricultural innovation (gene traits, transformation technologies and seed germplasm) has been supplanting traditional agricultural understandings of seed, farmers' rights, and breeders' rights.”
http://www.panna.org/issues/pesticides-profit/chemical-cartel
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