“ASA will analyse potential impacts of this proposed merger on soybean farmers to give comments to the companies and US regulatory authorities that must approve any merger, including Justice Department,” said ASA president Richard Wilkins, a soybean farmer from Greenwood, Delaware.
Some US analysts say the merger of these two groups is not a major market concentration, noting Bayer is a pharma and health care firm while Monsanto deals in crop chemicals and seeds.
In December, the US Justice Department began a broad examination of global consolidation of seed and agri-chemical groups — with Dow and DuPont’s plans for a €115bn merger.
China National Chemical Corp also aims to buy Syngenta, in Switzerland. All three deals are still pending.