Too Big to Feed

Mega-mergers are sparking unprecedented consolidation across food systems, and new data technologies represent a powerful new driver. For decades, firms in the agri-food sector have pursued mergers and acquisitions and other forms of consolidation as part of their growth strategies. However, the recent spate of mega-mergers takes this logic to a new scale. Since 2015, the “biggest year ever for mergers and acquisitions”, a number of high-profile deals have come onto the table in a range of agri-food sectors – often with a view to linking different nodes in the chain. These include the $130 billion merger between US agro-chemical giants,

Dow and DuPont, Bayer’s $66 billion buyout of Monsanto, ChemChina’s acquisition of Syngenta for $43 billion and its planned merger with Sinochem in 2018. These deals alone will place as much as 70% of the agrochemical industry in the hands of only three merged companies. A new report Too Big to Feed Exploring the impacts of mega-mergers, consolidation and concentration of power in the agri-food sector from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems analyzes this issue.