Lucas, Chinese chemical giant ChemChina has begun a $43 billion merger
with Swiss-based seed and pesticide company Syngenta to create one of
the largest chemical and GMO seed companies in the world.
This proposed merger could have huge ramifications in the U.S. and across the entire global food system, where only six companies now control 75 percent of the world’s seed and agricultural chemical business. Further consolidation would put our food production system in the hands of even fewer multinational corporations, with the potential of unchecked use of more toxic chemicals and GMOs in our food supply.
Sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos to President Obama: Stop the ChemChina-Syngenta merger.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which is made up of 16 separate agencies from across the Treasury, Homeland Security, and Defense Departments, is preparing to review this proposed mega-merger for potential risks to national security. A group of lawmakers has voiced their concerns that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration have been left out of the oversight process. It makes little sense to exclude from this vital investigation these agencies tasked with overseeing our food system.
The slow, yet persistent takeover of the U.S. food system presents a huge risk to food security and food safety, as many Chinese food companies are government-owned and operate with fewer safety guidelines than American companies. Just in 2014, a Chinese company bought the world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Farms, in a massive $4.7 billion deal – the largest acquisition by a Chinese company of a U.S. corporation in history. The ChemChina-Syngenta merger is a further consolidation of the corporate stranglehold on our food chain.
The risks to the American food system are far too great, and that’s why the Obama Administration must do whatever it can to prevent this merger from going through and threaten our fragile food system any further.
Tell President Obama: Stop the ChemChina-Syngenta merger.
Keep fighting,
Monique Teal, Daily Kos