big six seed companies of world
A Profile of Corporate Power in Seeds,
Agrochemicals & Biotech
By Hope Shand
Sixteen years after GE crops made their commercial debut in the US, what are the benefits for farmers, diversity and society? The following article, adapted, in part, from
ETC Group’s Who Will Control the Green Economy?, provides an update on current trends in industrial agriculture and examines the giant firms that control “the first link” in the corporate food chain.1
The Big Six Seed, Biotech & Agrochemical Corporations
Business-friendly court decisions in the 1980s opened the door to exclusive monopoly rights on seeds and other life forms, propelling an unprecedented wave of seed industry concentration. In recent decades, the seed industry has experienced a faster rate of market concentration than any other farm input sector.2 Monsanto may be the largest, most notorious and conspicuous of all the biotech Gene Giants, but it’s important to look at the bigger picture. to agricultural economists, some U.S. farmers adopted industry’s genetically engineered (GE) seeds and companion chemicals faster than any agricultural technology in history.
The undisputed commercial success of GE seeds in the U.S. and a handful of other countries illustrates the paradox of new technologies that are introduced in oligopolistic markets with minimal government regulation and oversight: that is, such products don’t have to be technically superior (i.e. they don’t have to work)
Rank / Company (headquarters) | US$ Millions, 2009 | Market Share or be socially useful in
The Big Six: The order to be profitable. world’s six largest
1. Monsanto (USA) |$7,297 | 27%
Although the biotech seed/agrochemical/ 2. DuPont (Pioneer) (USA) / $4,641 | 17% industr y’s public biotech firms
3. Syngenta (Switzerland) | $2,564 | 9% relations machine
( B A S F, B a y e r ,
4. Groupe Limagrain (France) | $1,252 | 5% has perpetuated the
Dow Agrosciences,
5. Land O’ Lakes/Winfield
Agrochemicals & Biotech
By Hope Shand
Sixteen years after GE crops made their commercial debut in the US, what are the benefits for farmers, diversity and society? The following article, adapted, in part, from
ETC Group’s Who Will Control the Green Economy?, provides an update on current trends in industrial agriculture and examines the giant firms that control “the first link” in the corporate food chain.1
The Big Six Seed, Biotech & Agrochemical Corporations
Business-friendly court decisions in the 1980s opened the door to exclusive monopoly rights on seeds and other life forms, propelling an unprecedented wave of seed industry concentration. In recent decades, the seed industry has experienced a faster rate of market concentration than any other farm input sector.2 Monsanto may be the largest, most notorious and conspicuous of all the biotech Gene Giants, but it’s important to look at the bigger picture. to agricultural economists, some U.S. farmers adopted industry’s genetically engineered (GE) seeds and companion chemicals faster than any agricultural technology in history.
The undisputed commercial success of GE seeds in the U.S. and a handful of other countries illustrates the paradox of new technologies that are introduced in oligopolistic markets with minimal government regulation and oversight: that is, such products don’t have to be technically superior (i.e. they don’t have to work)
Rank / Company (headquarters) | US$ Millions, 2009 | Market Share or be socially useful in
The Big Six: The order to be profitable. world’s six largest
1. Monsanto (USA) |$7,297 | 27%
Although the biotech seed/agrochemical/ 2. DuPont (Pioneer) (USA) / $4,641 | 17% industr y’s public biotech firms
3. Syngenta (Switzerland) | $2,564 | 9% relations machine
( B A S F, B a y e r ,
4. Groupe Limagrain (France) | $1,252 | 5% has perpetuated the
Dow Agrosciences,
5. Land O’ Lakes/Winfield