News stories that Bayer has increased its bid for Monsanto and that the two companies are continuing to negotiate prompted National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson to take action. He’s calling on the US Justice Department to act on the deal, saying a merger between the two companies would not be good for farmers. Johnson said, 
“A Bayer/Monsanto merger would be a continuation of a wave of mergers in the agricultural input sector. That wave includes the recently approved ChemChina deal to acquire Syngenta, as well as the proposed mergers between Dow and DuPont and Potash Corporation and Agrium.” He said NFU will continue to express concerns that mega deals like these are made to benefit those in the boardroom and not family farmers. Along those same lines, Johnson said, “We are pleased to see that the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit to prevent a proposed merger between John Deere and Precision Planting. We urge them to continue to reject any deals, both now and in the future, that hurt marketplace competition.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting news service.