Iowa agribusiness leader Bruce Rastetter is a Republican mega-donor who wants the incoming Trump administration to block mergers in the works between large seed and chemical companies. The deals between Bayer and Monsanto, DuPont and Dow, along with ChemChina and Syngenta are worth billions of dollars. Rastetter tells the Des Moines Register that the deals will limit competition, raise costs for farmers, and stunt job growth. He adds, “These mergers would accomplish the opposite of what the President-elect ran on, and that’s greater opportunity in America.” Rastetter says the motivation behind the deals is a clear one: “To increase prices and production costs for producers.” He says the federal government’s long and costly approval process for new biotech products and patent licenses is the driving force behind these mergers. Rastetter will press the administration and Congress to focus on changing regulations to make it easier for small businesses to compete, thereby improving competition and choices in the marketplace. The Committee on Foreign Investments in the United State signed off on the ChemChina purchase of Syngenta last year but that deal still faces more scrutiny in other countries.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting news service.