A food system undercorporate controlOur food system is broken: Europe’s currentmodel of farming and food consumption isdestroying people and the planet.

Agribusiness corporations like Bayer andMonsanto continue to promote an industrialmodel of agriculture that is destroying soils,water supplies, rural communities andbiodiversity, and is slowly turning the Earthinto a desert. Monsanto and Bayer are two ofthe most influential companies in thisindustry and the consequences of their toxicactivities are felt throughout the globe.

A merger between these two agribusinessgiants would be catastrophic for people andthe planet. It would put more pesticides inour food and water; increase the amount ofgenetically-modified produce on our plates,and endanger public health.It would increasethe already massive corporate control overour food and farming systems and crushsmall-scale and independent farmers. It isthem, not big multinational actors like Bayerand Monsanto, who are feeding the majorityof people worldwide and are therefore thethe front-line defenders of global foodsecurity.

For years we have been fighting for a foodsystem free from corporate control thatprovides pesticide-free food; guarantees adecent living for small-scale farmers, andensures food sovereignty for all. The plannedmerger goes against all of those principles.

It is not safe to leave so much power in thehands of so few, especially when it affectssomething as vital as the food we eat. If weare to have any chance of reversing theharmful effects of industrial agriculture, thismerger must not be approved.

A toxic mixAlthough widely used across the world,many Bayer and Monsanto products arehighly toxic for people and planet.

One kind of problematic Bayer insecticidesare the so-called ‘neonicotinoids’, whoseactive ingredients are a main driver of thelarge-scale death of bees and otherpollinators. Although this has terribleconsequences for ecosystems and foodproduction, Bayer has started a lobby war tooverturn a partial ban on neonicotinoids inthe EU.

By the advice of the EU's food safety agencyEFSA, the partial ban was issued for threeneonicotinoids in 2013. This led Bayer to hire‘product defense company’ Exponent toattack the scientific evidence underlying theban. Bayer is currently suing the EuropeanCommission to see this partial banoverturned. But its war on science looks setto be in vain: the EU is expected to announcea complete ban on neonics this year.In an attempt to at least limit reputationaldamage, the company is running ‘Bayer BeeCare Centers’ - an obvious greenwashinginititive.

Merger from HellSix reasons why a Bayer-Monsantomerger threatens people and the planet

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For Monsanto, its biggest worry is also itsbiggest cash cow: glyphosate. The activeingredient in its flagship weedkiller RoundUpwas found to ”probably cause cancer inhumans” by the World Health Organisation.Yet its widespread use means glyphosateresidue can now be found in human urineand breastmilk.

This year the EU has to decide whether togrant another 10-year market authorisationfor glyphosate-based weed killers. Given theWHO findings, an EU ban of the substanceshould be beyond debate. But Monsanto hasbeen trying to rubbish the scientific evidenceagainst its product. It insisted the WHO studyon glyphosate was “junk science”, and hasbeen running the industry lobby group‘Glyphosate Task Force’.

Although the EU agencies for food safety andchemicals already concede that glyphosatecan seriously damage sight and has long-lasting toxic effects on aquatic life, they rejectits likely carcinogenic characteristic inhumans. Tellingly, these EU risk assessmentsare based on Monsanto-owned studies thatare not fully available for independentscrutiny and were not compiled byindependent scientists.

Almost 1,5 million people signed a petition toban glyphosate, and this year a EuropeanCitizens’ Initiative was launched.

Lobby spendingBayer and Monsanto have to declare theirlobby spending in the EU and the US intransparency registers. But these figuresonly cover direct lobbying in the capitals.Many other costs lurk beneath the surface.

The US has a legally-binding register with aquarterly reporting requirement. Howeverthe EU transparency register is voluntary andthere are no sanctions for misleadingdeclarations. This makes the data unreliableand often unrealistic. There are few resourcesfor verifying declarations, which makes itvirtually impossible to trust the reported data.

Given the restraints of the EU register, thefigures for Bayer and Monsanto'sEU lobby spending represent the tip of theiceberg. According to Open Secrets,Monsanto’s lobbying in the US in 2015amounted to an estimated $4,330,000, butthe company only declared lobby spending ofbetween €300,000 and €399,999 in the EU'sregister. It looks similar for Bayer: While thecompany declared $7,730,000 lobby spendingfor 2015 to the US authorities, Bayer onlydeclared €1,989,000 to the EU authorities.

The very different declarations make it hardto believe that these figures are accurate,especially considering that the EU market intrade terms is bigger than the US market.Bayer and Monsanto's declared lobbyspending for 2015 alone amounts to at least€13,521,187 when combined. But the realamount is likely to be much higher.

Take actionSign the European Citizens' Initiative:www.corporateeurope.org/stopglyphosateand follow #StopGlyphosate on Twitter.

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In addition to their in-house lobbyists whoattempt to influence legislation on theirbehalf, Bayer and Monsanto also use otherlobby strategies to make their voice heard.

Public relations companies, tradeassociations, think tanks, law firms, productdefence companies and lobby consultanciesare among the actors employed by Bayer andMonsanto to echo their positions, produceand push studies in their favour and providePR strategies, for example. These companiesget paid generous fees by Bayer andMonsanto, for example, to set up industry-orchestrated groups like the 'Glyphosate TaskForce', which is run by Hume Brophy forMonsanto.

There is no way of knowing exactly how muchBayer and Monsanto spend on these for-hirelobby actors every year – presumably a largesum – which might far exceed their spendingon in-house lobbyists.

Tangled in the lobby webMonsanto and Bayer have built a vastnetwork of influencers to bend EU laws andsafety standards in their favour. Lobbyactivities on their behalf are coordinated bylobby associations organised at global,regional and national level.

In Brussels, Monsanto and Bayer arerepresented by the seed lobby EuropeanSeed Association (ESA), pesticide lobbyEuropean Crop Protection Association (ECPA),biotech lobby EuropaBio and chemical lobbyCEFIC. CEFIC alone employs around 135 staffand has an annual budget of €40million,making it the single biggest lobby actor in theEuropean Union.

They also get specialised support from lobbyconsultancies and law firms like FleishmanHillard, Weber Shandwick, FTI Consulting,Hume Brophy, Hill & Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller. The ‘Glyphosate Task Force’, led byMonsanto and managed by Hume Brophy, isset on achieving an extension of the marketauthorisation of highly toxic glyphosate-based weedkillers.

Monsanto and Bayer are also members ofindustry-funded science platforms like theInternational Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) orthe European Centre For Ecotoxicology andToxicology of Chemicals (ECETOC), which aimto skew the way products are approved in theindustry’s favour. ‘Product defencecompanies’ like Exponent and Gradient Corppay scientists to cherry-pick study data that isin their clients’ interest and for criticisingindependent study data that is not.Monsanto, Bayer, CEFIC and ECPA have allbeen using such services to defend cancer-causing and fertility-damaging cropprotection products.

Patented and weedkiller-addicted GM cropsA substantial part of Bayer’s andMonsanto’s business comes fromgenetically-modified (GM) seeds that havebeen engineered to tolerate the companies’herbicides.

Monsanto was the first company tocommercially launch weedkiller-tolerantcrops with GM soy, maize and oilseed rapevarieties made to withstand the toxicglyphosate component in its best-sellingherbicide Roundup. Bayer produces its ownrange of GM varieties resistant to its broad-spectrum weedkiller ‘Liberty’, which containsglufosinate – which is a similar substance toglyphosate. To market these geneticallymodified seeds, the corporations claim thatsmaller amounts of pesticides are needed.

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But weedkiller-resistant crops have actuallyincreased the use and quantities ofherbicides, especially as many weeds havedeveloped a resistance to glyphosate. As aconsequence, farmers have been forced tospray more glyphosate-based pesticides ontheir crops, as well as additional weedkillers.Monsanto, Bayer and other big agribusinesscorporations have developed GM crops thatcan withstand several different herbicides,which are now necessary to control weedadaptation. This means many agriculturalproducts will have been treated with multipletoxic herbicides before reaching consumers.

The high price and GM patents of herbicide-resistant crops are also problematic, as theyforce farmers to buy expensive seed licensesevery season. The monopolies of bigagribusiness corporations like Monsanto,Bayer, Syngenta, Dow and DuPont make itincreasingly difficult for farmers to choosenon-GM and/ or non-patented seeds.

Mergers of such companies will give evenmore influence to these already powerfulactors, trapping farmers into dependency ontheir products.

The BaySanto lobby tool boxMonsanto and Bayer use a wide range oflobby strategies to rig EU pesticideregulation in their favour. From directlobbying to public relations spin and thecorporate capture of science – no tool is toounethical for these two agribusiness giants.

As well as joining forces with similarcorporations in industry lobby associations,Bayer and Monsanto both pay huge sums tospecialised lobby consultancies and law firmsevery year to boost their own influencingprowess and push industry-friendlyalternatives to policy proposals. But theirdirect lobbying goes even further; many ofthe European Commission’s advisory expertgroups feature several industryrepresentatives who can shape policyrecommendations from the start.

The public relations departments working forthe companies do their bit to sideline healthand environmental concerns aroundherbicides. They aggressively vilify critics,present the industry’s ultimate goal as‘feeding the world’, and try their best to‘greenwash’ the industry’s reputation byframing agribusiness corporations asinnovators empowering farmers.

Bayer and Monsanto also co-opt scientificresearch to protect their profits: to ensurefavourable study data, the pesticideproducers initiate and monitor public-privateresearch projects, fund scientists to echotheir messages as third party voices and hireproduct defence companies to publishstudies that cast doubt on independentresearch findings.

Find out moreCorporate Europe Observatorywww.corporateeurope.orgFollow us on Twitter: @corporateeurope

Friends of the Earth Europewww.foeeurope.orgFollow us on Twitter: @foeeurope

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