Brussels, however, has issued a conditional permit. Bayer will first have to make the promised divestments and then maintain the number of competitors in the sector. To reduce competition, it will sell its seed and plant protection business to its competitor BASF.

The seed business

The portal Carro de Combate offers a reading of the research on Monsanto, in which it explains how the multinational has made its way to the commercialization of transgenic products.

For centuries, they kept some seeds produced by farmers who had the best appearance to plant the next crop. This practice changed radically since the 1980s, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that living organisms are also patentable.

A decade earlier, Monsanto had discovered glyphosate: it was such a potent herbal poison that, in addition to weeds, it often destroyed the entire crop. At that time, Monsanto began to produce foods that could tolerate this herbal poison and began to market transgenic foods.

Since then, multinationals in the sector have managed to impose laws that benefit GMOs through the International Union for the Protection of Plant Breeders (UPOV).

According to Carro de Combate’s research, the international seed business has now moved $6.276 billion over three years, with the figure expected to double this year.