“The merger is more power in the hands of criminal corporations. To not just push the agenda, but corrupt governments, subvert democracy.”
– Vandana Shiva (from this week’s interview)
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As much of the world and the media focuses on the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, another ‘royal couple’ is on the verge of completing its own matrimonial arrangement after a 21 month engagement.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently cleared the path for the German pharmaceutical and chemical company Bayer to merge with U.S. based agricultural giant Monsanto in a take-over deal worth more than $60 billion.
Once the partnership attains U.S. anti-trust approval, likely within days, a new entity will emerge, commanding more than a quarter of the combined world market for seeds and pesticides.
Would that this were a traditional wedding ceremony! With profound reasons for opposing this marriage, a robust crop of hands would spring up when prompted to ‘speak now or forever hold your peace!’
According to a recent poll of 48 U.S. States, 94 percent of farmers are concerned about the merger, with 83 percent being very concerned. Their top three concerns: market dominance to push other products, control over farmers’ data, and increased pressure to rely on chemical based farming practices.
This merger has implications not only for what goes on our dinner plate. There are questions of economic and political control that need to be addressed. Critics argue that the power of these economic giants is such that they have ‘captured’ regulatory agencies. Limitless financial resources permit these and similar companies to buy off academics, media and politicians.
The Global Research News Hour radio program takes a devoted look this week to the social and environmental costs associated with the merger of Bayer and Monsanto and the agro-chemical industry more generally with four interviews.
Dr. Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist and anti-globalization author. Her work centers on issues of bioethics, biodiversity, intellectual property rights, and genetic engineering. She founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology in 1982, which led to the creation of Navdanya in 1991, a national movement for the protection of biological resources, especially native seeds. In a short discussion recorded in Winnipeg in May of 2017, Dr. Shiva put the Bayer-Monsanto merger and GMO agriculture within the larger frame of colonialism, patriarchy, and anthropocentrism, and points us to alternative perspectives which will allow our species not only to survive, but thrive. She has authored numerous books including her most recent: Who Really Feeds the World? (2016)
Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute and the author of hundreds of articles and a dozen books including The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity (2013) and Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free (2007). Ms. Brown speaks about her recent article on the Bayer-Monsanto merger which makes reference to these two companies’ links to the infamous war-time chemical cartel known as I.G. Farben. Brown also makes note of the alternatives to GMO / agro-chemical agriculture being offered up by Russia.…..more here