Consider the Corporations

Big corporations are having a hard time competing. And it’s costing them money. Now they need to consolidate. I feel so bad for them. Speaking as a farmer I know how tough it can be when returns don’t total enough to pay expenses. And I know Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont, BASF, and Bayer have my best interests at heart. That’s why they kept raising prices on their patented seeds and pesticides even after prices of wheat corn and soybeans had sunk below green into red. Perhaps it was meant to give me hope–and some heavy expenses I could write off my taxes. Either way, they’re the only game in town. If my biggest suppliers could make money running their competition out of business, then I suppose whether I like it or not, I should too. Anyhow, I need corporate innovation to keep me on the cutting edge. But these days the cutting edge seems like a meat grinder making farmer burgers of me and my neighbors. We’re on the menu while corporate agriculture is eating high on the hog. Even though Monsanto delivered “solid” performance in 2015, the end must be near with profits in 2016 down nearly 25%. Speaking as a farmer, I wish I had hope for any 2016 profits at all let alone 75% of last year’s. And Monsanto is blaming my equity-losing situation for its own inability to earn more than a few billion dollars this year.  Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina say this is the result of too much government regulation. Maybe they should get a real job outside Washington.  I’d be happy to sell them mine.  Tax free of course.  But Senator Chuck Grassley, a farmer in his own right, says farm profits are dwindling among higher seed prices and all these corporate mergers. National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson noted that three very large companies could soon control 80% of corn-seed sales in the US and 70% of worldwide pesticide sales.