Pity The Monsanto Haters

An old saying goes thus: “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.” Given current events, there are probably more than a few Monsanto haters out there beginning to realize exactly how this feels.

For several months now, the agricultural marketplace has been in all-out consolidation mode. In particular, crop protection/seed suppliers have been extremely active in this area, with Syngenta being acquired by ChemChina and Dow and DuPont merging their businesses. For a time, it seemed as if Monsanto would be a buyer as well. However, the company’s merger overtures to Syngenta were ultimately rejected and Monsanto announced it was “no longer in the acquisition game.”

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Now, however, Bayer has formally put in a bid to purchase Monsanto. Further industry speculation also points to a possible rival bid from BASF. Obviously, we will have more information on these efforts in the coming weeks and months as things develop. But either way, it seems as if the long-time St. Louis, MO-based corporate giant could disappear.

And while many analysts will undoubtedly speculate on what this will mean for the agricultural market, I wonder what Monsanto going away will mean for another group: The Monsanto Haters. For what seems like decades now, there have been ongoing online and in-person protests against Monsanto and its host of product offerings. In fact, whole organizations have made it their mission to see the company “gone” from the world – and likely profited handsomely along the way with donations and volunteer manpower.

What will they do if this really happens? It would seem to be much harder to “rally the troops” against such things as biotech crops and glyphosate use on a daily and weekly basis if there’s no enemy to point to.

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