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by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News

The recent Monsanto-Bayer merger has been approved by both American and European continent authorities, merging two of the world’s top seed biotech companies and producers of genetically modified seeds.

Bayer, a company based out of Germany, is a name most often associated with aspirin in the United States and around the world. But even before this merger, they already held a huge market share of seed production.

Bayer is somewhat constrained in developing their GMO products, as Germany bans the cultivation of GMO crops. Most of Bayer’s GMO development is done in the USA, and by purchasing Monsanto, they will become, by far, the largest GMO company in the world.

This has prompted some to refer to the Bayer-Monsanto merger as “A Marriage Made in Hell.”

This Merger Has Been Called “A Marriage Made in Hell” by Environmental Activists

Monsanto has a history of being accused of toxic destruction, lies and cover-ups, threats and harassment against farmers falsely accused of violating patent rights, and patenting non-GMO seeds that they have simply purchased, all as part of an alleged effort to literally own the world’s food supply.

Monsanto was involved with spreading toxic PCBs, until banned by governments, and causing illness, death, and deformed births with agent orange sprayed during the Vietnam war, which they refused to take responsibility for on behalf of Vietnam vets, forcing the U.S. Veterans Administration to eventually create a fund to compensate veterans damaged by agent orange. (Source)

Monsanto is also responsible for the world’s most widely sprayed herbicide, glyphosate. Glyphosate is currently on trial around the world for causing various diseases, and in a case in the U.S. they are being accused of fraud and covering up harmful studies suppressed for years that links glyphosate to cancer. (Source.)

Bayer is primarily a pharmaceutical company, the largest class of criminal organizations in the world in terms of fraud lawsuits filed and settled. (Source.)

When Bayer tried to jump into the lucrative cholesterol-lowering statin drug market, their product, Baycol, was ineffective and caused serious side effects prompting a whistleblower lawsuit from a former employee. (Source.)

According to DrugWatch.com, Bayer has:

faced its share of litigation and scandal from product liability suits, false marketing claims, Nazi ties and selling HIV-tainted blood products to hemophiliacs in the 1980s.

Public Perceptions more Friendly Toward the Bayer Brand-name than the Monsanto Brand-name

Bayer’s main international headquarters is in Leverkusen, Germany. German law requires that shareholders vote on such mergers through acquisition, simply because the standard acquisition merger may result in splitting or devaluing shares. 

Some analysts think Bayer CEO Warner Baumann went to raising capital for a full cash purchase of Monsanto with loans to avoid that shareholder vote. The public perception of Monsanto is worse than that of Bayer. 

They also mention how borrowed capital is now relatively cheap. This approach does not require a shareholder vote that could spoil the deal. (Source)

The Monsanto brand will be gone. The name of the new company’s agrichemical and seed division goes to the buyer and becomes Bayer Crop Science according to CEO Warner Bauman.

Bayer’s business success has mostly relied on its pharmaceutical production, which will retain the Bayer brand name. As is typical of most pharmaceutical companies, its pharmaceutical history has its dark moments with serious adverse effects and deaths. 

But the negative public perception of Bayer’s agrichemical business is not as widespread and dark as Monsanto’s.  

So now Bayer can assume a more wholesome position than Monsanto’s reputation. CEO Bauman has promised to not use Bayer’s better EU perception for pushing GMO products on Europeans. But those opposing the merger point out this would now grant one chemical company more control of the food supply. 

Anti-GMO and environmental activists seriously doubt Bauman’s statements are anything more than public relations double-speak. The fact that so many have opposed this merger in Europe with 50,000 emails and 5,000 letters is testimony for these agrichemical giants’ ability to sway governmental decisions in their favor. (Source)   

In order to appease governmental monopoly concerns on both sides of the Atlantic for final acquisition approval, Bayer has been forced to divest much its own vegetable seed and agrichemical division by selling most of its agrichemical and seed assets to German-based BASF, a multi-national chemical manufacturer that also sells pesticides.   

But all the Monsanto products remain, including Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds, terminator seeds, and crop plants with their own built-in insecticides. Bayer is retaining all of its prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical production business and some of its agribusiness they were not forced to sell to BASF as part of the agreement with EU officials to allow the merger purchase. 

While there has been some speculation about why Bayer is buying out Monsanto, there have been other more chemical manufacturing company mergers happening with less fanfare lately. Dow Chemical and Dupont merged last September to become DowDupont. Earlier this year (2018) ChemChina and Syngenta merged to become ChemChina-Syngenta. These three mergers will now control most of the world’s seed supply.

There have also been other buyouts and mergers among the major chemical companies’ subsidiaries and other smaller companies. It’s the trend, a trend that’s creating monolith chemical corporations that can influence governments, research centers, and the media even more than ever. 

Monsanto Brand-name Gone – But Not Its Products

On the public relations front, the most conspicuously disliked Monsanto brand will soon be no longer visible. Syngenta has also become less conspicuous with its merger to ChemChina after creating flaps among its tainted U.S. organic and conventional farmers crops from their unregistered, closely-located, GMO testing fields. 

Ironically, there were also heavy losses sustained by U.S. farmers from the losses of corn exports to China after that nation canceled all corn from the U.S. due to Syngenta’s release of an unapproved GMO strain into Chinese ports. (Source) 

What else concerns anti-GMO and pesticide activists is the looming possibility of newer pesticides, since more and more glyphosate-resistant weed growth has occurred over the years. Even worse is the prospect of these poisonous chemical companies controlling the world’s food supply by controlling seeds that aren’t even genetically modified.

Monsanto Merger with Bayer: 3 Companies Will Soon Control 60% of World’s Seed Supply

Weed resistance to glyphosate, over the years, has been leaving many Monsanto-contracted farmers with the dilemma of having to buy GMO Roundup Ready seeds that are modified to accept Roundup’s glyphosate (and other ingredients). In addition to being contractually-bound for purchasing those seeds annually, they are bound to purchase Roundup as the herbicide. 

But the continuing rise of weed resistance forces them to buy more herbicides other than Roundup, while continuing their contractual obligation of buying Roundup Ready seeds. It’s an upwardly expanding expense cycle. 

This and other strong-arm tactics Monsanto has used to enforce its contracts and protect its patented seeds have tainted the Monsanto brand among many farmers. 

Financially, Monsanto has run into regional legal resistance to its latest dicamba herbicide XtendiMax while genetically modifying seeds for crops that are dicamba-resistant. 

Farmers concerns and complaints about dicamba’s tendency to vaporize in warm weather and drift as a gas, to adversely affect plant crops cultivated by conventional and organic farmers in a regional proximity, has forced Arkansas and Missouri to ban its use in 2017. 

A farmer class action suit is filed in the Missouri federal court alleging Monsanto knowingly created this drift situation to force farmers into contracting for dicamba-resistant seeds to avoid the catastrophe of losing their crops from dicamba drift. Lead class action suit plaintiff, Forest River Farms, claims:

“Monsanto’s monopolization and attempted monopolization of the seeds market stymies competition, hurts producers, and harms the public at large, [invites into the class action] all individuals and entities who directly purchased seeds containing Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant trait [to avoid dicamba drift].” (Source)

Monsanto is also under more financial duress as increasing individuals, class action, and local governments have filed lawsuits for health damages against Monsanto for Roundup ever since its main active ingredient, glyphosate, was declared a probable carcinogenic by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

New “Digital Farming” Technology Will Create More Control Over the World’s Food Supply

Now we are faced with double trouble with this merger. The crown jewel of Monsanto’s satellite farmer network has become part of Bayer’s acquisition. It could be considered the Big Brother of Agriculture, as it becomes a tool for farmers under seed and pesticide contracts with the newly-merged conglomerate. This system is being referred to as “digital farming”. 

Ostensibly touted to be a boon for farmers under contract with Monsanto, now Bayer Crop Science, digital farming centralizes food production even more. Centralization always makes it easier for the few to control governments, regulatory agencies, and the media for their exclusive agendas. 

Now we have doubly centralized trouble with this latest merger of Monsanto and Bayer that purposely wants to crowd out organic farming with its ownership of so many crop seeds. 

The toxic chemicals these merged companies produce find their way into human bodies at the top of the food chain. Banning GMO agriculture is the only way to prevent a complete takeover of the world’s food supply by companies who profit from producing poisons.

Let’s hope this trend takes a turn in the other direction before it’s too late..