Mapping corporate power in Big Food

FOODBARONS2022

Crisis Profiteering, Digitalization and Shifting PowerWe are deeply grateful to Bread for the World, Misereor, the CS Fund, Wallace
Global Fund, The AgroEcology Fund and Heinrich Böll Fundacion (Mexicoand The Caribbean) for making this yearlong endeavour possible. This
report draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada and Adasina Social Capital.
Researchers:

Hope Shand
Kathy Jo Wetter
Kavya Chowdhry
and the ETC Group collective
Front cover:Garth Laidlaw | https://www.garthlaidlaw.com
Infographics:

Andrea M Medina | https://www.andreammedina.com
Graphic design:Daniel Passarge | danielpassarge@gmail.com
Translation to Spanish:

Natalia Núñez Silvestri | natalianunezsilvestri@gmail.com
A Spanish translation of this report is forthcoming and will be available on
our website: www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022
References and footnotes: All links were live/working in July 2022.
20 September 2022

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

ETC Group is a small, international, research and action collective
committed to social and environmental justice, human rights andthe defence of just and ecological agri-food systems and the web oflife. We focus on understanding and challenging corporate-controlled
techno-industrial systems and exposing the dangers of the technological manipulation of life, especially in relation to climate justice andfood security. We uphold peasant and indigenous ways of life andknowledge systems; food sovereignty; people’s control of technology;
and just economies and governance.
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Food Barons 2022:

Crisis Profiteering, Digitalizationand Shifting Power
full report
CONTENTS

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Research by sector
Agrochemicals and seeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Synthetic fertilizers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Livestock genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Machinery for big ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Animal pharma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Agricultural commodity trading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Big meat and protein. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Food and beverage processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Grocery retail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Food delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  123The (Bio)Digital Takeover of Food and Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  137

|4|

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYETC Group’s 2022 update of corporate concentration offers a snapshot of the world’s Food
Barons – the biggest players up and down the industrial food and agriculture chain. We examine the leading corporations that control each of 11 key industrial “agrifood” sectors: seeds,
agrochemicals, livestock genetics, synthetic fertilizers, farm machinery, animal pharmaceuticals, commodity traders, food processors, Big Meat, grocery retail and food delivery. Rankings
are based on 2020 sales figures.
Our findings show that many agrifood sectors are now so “top heavy” they are controlled byjust four to six dominant firms, enabling these companies to wield enormous influence overmarkets, agricultural research and policy-development, which undermines food sovereignty.
The year 2020 was a horrific year for food security and health – but a bonanza for Big Food and
Big Ag. In the midst of a global pandemic – combined with climate shocks, supply chain gridlock, price spikes, increasing hunger, food and energy shortages, civil strife, racial violence andwars – these Food Barons made the most of the converging crises in order to tighten their gripon every link in the Industrial Food Chain. In doing so, they undermine the rights of peasants,
smallholders, fishers and pastoralists to produce food for their own communities and manyothers. The Food Barons exploit workers, poison soil and water, diminish biodiversity, prevent
climate justice and perpetuate a food system structured upon racial and economic injustice.
We identify seven key aspects of the global Industrial Food Chain, which we have conceptualized in terms of power: The Food Barons aim to hold on to, naturalize and expand theirpower, despite their many failings – failings that became especially obvious during the global
pandemic.
We also bring attention to three critical, multi-sectoral trends that increase the ability of theFood Barons – Big Ag, together with Big Tech and Big Finance – to maintain control over the
Industrial Food Chain. The first of these is the digitalization of food and agriculture across thechain. The second is the rising power of Asian (especially Chinese) Food Barons. The third ishorizontal integration, including the increasing involvement of asset management companies
in food and agriculture sectors – which creates the semblance of competition, but diminishes
actual competition.
In contrast to the increasing concentration and power of the Food Barons it is important toremind ourselves who feeds the majority of the world: peasants. The Peasant Food Web feeds
the equivalent of 70% of the world’s people1 using less than 30% of the world’s land, waterand agricultural resources. Proposals from the grassroots – such as the International Planning
Committee for Food Sovereignty’s Nyéléni Process2 – aim to put farmers, growers, fishers,
hunters and consumers back at the heart of the food system and undo the power being usurped
by industrial agriculture.
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

|5|
As we confront climate change and its alarming consequences, we must recognize the voices,
actions, solutions, and leadership of all peoples. The analysis in this report is based on understanding the relationship between racial justice and climate change and how extractive agriculture disproportionately impacts people of colour and Indigenous communities.3
It’s time to divest from the Industrial Food Chain. Institutions under pressure from civil society have already succeeded in partly directing funds away from tobacco, arms and fossil fuels
on moral grounds. Grassroots climate movements have successfully named fossil fuel companies as the obstruction to meaningful climate action. Food movements should follow suit: it
is a logical next step to demand the elimination of all financial support to the Industrial Food
Chain, exposing its high degree of transnational corporate control and its multiple abuses.
The participatory assessment of technologies based on precaution, as well as the development
and support for the implementation of socially and ecologically useful technologies, should also
be a top priority. In addition, anti-competition regulators must develop new mechanisms tounderstand and restrict the cross-chain powers of data giants and horizontal shareholders andrequire much greater transparency among private equity and other corporate actors.
This is a moment to see the Food Barons for what they are, to find their structural weaknesses
and to take strategic collaborative action to take them on. This report provides some usefulintelligence for food sovereignty movements and their allies in the battles ahead.
Full research reports for each sector can be found here:
https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

|6|

INTRODUCTION
Power Failure: Covid-19 exposes Industrial Food Chain’s inbuilt
structural weaknesses
In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, lockdowns, concentrated markets, logistics disruptions and the spreading health crisis combined to ramp
up hunger and food insecurity, with nearly 12% of the global population –928 million people – severely food insecure.4 Climate change grew more
apocalyptic – wildfires in Australia; severe drought in the southern cone of
Latin America; crippling floods and locust plagues in sub-Saharan Africa –and exacerbated acute hunger and misery.
Extreme volatility and staggering economic inequality have now become
defining features of global food and agriculture markets, with asymmetrical impacts: even as global food insecurity, food prices and hunger soared,
Big Food and Big Ag posted record breaking profits. At the same time, theCovid-19 pandemic brutally unmasked the extreme vulnerability of a highly
centralized, industrialized food system that exploits workers and relies on“just-in-time” global supply chains that are non-transparent and susceptible
to disruption and corruption. Corporate concentration is a fundamental driver of these and other failures – across every link of the Industrial Food Chain.

Power Surge: shoring up power and crisis profiteering
When a handful of giant companies are allowed to dominate in uncompetitive markets, with little regulatory oversight, they can and do use their market power to squeeze out competitors, raise prices, hijack the R&D agenda,
monopolize technologies (even flawed and ineffective ones) and maximize
profits.
Today, amid ever-increasing corporate concentration and anemic antitrust
regulation, some of the world’s largest companies are using pandemic-induced supply chain gridlock and inflation as an excuse to jack up prices: apractice known as “crisis profiteering.”
Merriam-Webster defines profiteering as “the act or activity of making
an unreasonable profit on the sale of essential goods especially during
times of emergency.”5

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

|7|
In 2020, most of the world’s largest food and agriculture giants saw sales andprofits surge while almost a billion people went hungry and crops failed.6
In 2021, CNN reported that inflation was like a “gift” to the grocery sector,
which “mark[s] up the full rate of inflation plus a little bit more.”7 But it’s notjust the grocery sector: a wide range of sectors are taking advantage of thesituation, benefiting from inflation, and sometimes even restricting supply
to keep prices high, whilst blaming external circumstances such as the pandemic.8 A recent analysis of 100 U.S. corporations found a median increasein profits over the past two years of 49%.9 When it comes to food-price hikes
in a crisis, it is difficult to discern what’s genuinely crisis-related and what’s
rank profiteering. In other words, the problem isn’t just supply chain chaosor inflation; it’s corporate greed.10“Even as demand and profits rose post-vaccine,[executives] passed on most or all inflationary
costs to customers via price increases, and sometook the opportunity to add more on top.” 11
From Top 10s to Top 4s
Our research reveals that, after decades of consolidation, many Industrial
Food Chain sectors are so “top heavy” they are controlled by just four to six
dominant firms. Economists typically consider a four-firm concentration ratio of 40% or higher reflective of a sector that operates as an oligopoly. Manyof the sectors we monitor are already above that 40% threshold; others areon the verge of passing it.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

|8|“When you go from 15 to 10 companies, notmuch changes…When you go from 10 to six, a lotchanges. But when you go from six to four – it’s afix.” 12
“Those who have market power can raise prices
above what’s considered fair market value…We’reat a point in our market concentrations that wehaven’t seen ever before.” 13Power Play: Spinning false narratives
To sustain their market dominance, the Industrial Food Chain’s big players
actively work to deflect attention from their power grabs by promoting a
distorted picture of global food and agricultural systems. This was evident
at the UN’s controversial 2021 Food Systems Summit, where Big Food executives and their trade groups wrung their hands over a food system ‘broken’ by climate change and pandemic; then they assured us they were theonly ones who could fix it, with a ready-made agenda for “food systemtransformation”.14
Big Food consistently seeks to undermine the fact that the world’s three billion indigenous and peasant producers – rural and urban, fishers and pastoralists – not only feed a majority of the world’s people and most of the
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

|9|world’s malnourished, but that they also create and conserve most of theworld’s biodiversity making indigenous and peasant producers humanity’s
best defence against climate change.15
Power Up: Techno-fixes to lock-in corporate control
The Food Barons are introducing a suite of new technologies and “techno-fixes”
that are conceived and designed to entrench corporate control over food andagriculture even further. They have already wrested control of the agricultural research and development (R&D) agenda to suit their own interests,
whilst continuing to concentrate power and influence trade, aid and agricultural policies to fuel their growth and profit.16“Techno-fix” refers to the development of a technology product orintervention to address a social or environmental problem – often aproblem created by an earlier technological failure.

Up and down the industrial food chain, the digitalization of food and agriculture emerges as the new techno-fix of the day. Our ongoing research reveals
that every sector of the Industrial Food Chain is in the process of transforming into a digital enterprise. At the same time, Big Tech is becoming tightly
entangled with industrial food production. Data extracted via digital technologies is now itself a commodity: The Industrial Food Chain relies on Big Datato grow, process, trade, track, sell and transport its products.

Digitalizing food and agriculture from farm to front door
The vista of new digital initiatives in food and ag is dizzying. On thefarm, it includes concerted attempts to impose digital agriculture, weaving in drone sprayers, Artificial Intelligence-driven robotic planters andautomated animal-feeding operations tricked out with facial recognition
for livestock. Big Ag giants such as Bayer, Deere & Company, Corteva,
Syngenta and Nutrien are restructuring their entire businesses around
Big Data platforms. Bayer’s ‘Field View’ digital platform, for example,
extracts 87.5 billion datapoints from 180 million acres (78.2 million hectares) of farmland in 23 countries and funnels it into the cloud serversof Microsoft and Amazon.17 Deere, the world’s largest farm machinerycompany, now employs more software engineers than mechanical engineers.18 On the route to retail, the global grain trading system is getting a
digital overhaul as it becomes increasingly automated and products aretracked via blockchain. At the same time online grocery platforms andfood delivery apps (such as DoorDash, Zomato and Deliveroo) surged
during pandemic lockdowns and are growing into a whole new ‘last
mile’/ last link of the Industrial Food Chain.
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 10 |
Power Shifts: Big Food and Big Ag in China, Brazil, India and East Asia
In decades past, industrial agriculture was overwhelmingly dominated bycorporations based in North America and Europe, and focused primarily on
meeting market demand in those regions. Today, corporate players in the
global South, especially China, Brazil and India are reordering the Industrial
Food Chain, while adopting the same extractive model as their Northerncounterparts.19 The pace and scale of China’s hyper-industrializing agrifood
system is without precedent. Chinese Food Barons are catering to colossal
domestic as well as global markets: China’s state-owned Syngenta Group is
now the world’s largest agrochemical input firm (seeds, pesticides, fertilizers); and China’s newly consolidated COFCO is second only to Cargill as theworld’s largest agriculture commodity trader.
Power Trip: Asset managers and venture capitalists driving“financialization”
Recent decades have seen a massive increase in land grabbing and venture
capital speculation in food and agriculture assets worldwide, with the latter
trend exemplifying the “financialization” of the Industrial Food Chain. In thisway the driving purpose of food systems moves ever further away from feeding people to feeding profits. More recently private equity and asset management firms are flocking to global food and agribusiness.20 At the close of2020, the private equity industry managed more than US$7.5 trillion in capital,21 with increasing influence over the levers of corporate power in food andagriculture. For example, just three of the world’s largest asset management
firms collectively control more than one quarter of all institutional shares ofsome leading agribusiness corporations.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 11 |
Selected holdings of “Big Three” asset management firms – State Street, Vanguard,
Blackrock – in publicly-traded companies in the AgriFood Chain
Food & Ag
Company /Sector% of Shares
held by State
StreetCorp% of Shares heldby The Vanguard
Group

Pepsico
Tyson
ADM

4.23
4.99
5.62

7.41
12.75
10.87

Deere & Co.

3.70

7.09

Corteva

5.10

11.16

Mosaic

4.82

11.49

Walmart
Kroger

2.21
5.28

4.58
11.33

% of Shares heldby Blackrock, Inc.

% of Shares heldcollectively by the
Big Three

Food & Bev Processors
8.87
20.51
7.39
25.13
7.43
23.92
Farm Machinery
5.97
16.76
Agrochemical / Seed
8.46
24.72
Fertilizer
8.15
24.46
Grocery Retail
3.37
10.16
10.19
26.80

% of Shares held by Rank of Big Three out ofInstitutions
all institutional
shareholders

73.93
87.40
83.63

Top 3
Top 3
Among Top 5

80.00

Among Top 5

83.02

Top 3

91.46

Among Top 4

33.14
82.85

Top 3
Among Top 4

Source: Yahoo Finance, https://finance.yahoo.com/
Date holdings reported: 30 March 2022

ETC Group first reported on the largely invisible practice of horizontal shareholding by giant institutional investors in 2019. “Horizontal shareholding” isthe practice of owning assets in multiple corporations that are supposed tobe competing with each other, but are unlikely to compete if they have common owners. A small number of giant investor firms, often asset managers,
hold significant “horizontal shareholdings” – in and across many sectors of
the Industrial Food Chain, creating interlocking oligopolies.
There is mounting evidence that horizontal shareholding in concentrated
markets is promoting anti-competitive practices that fly below the radar of
antitrust regulators.22 In the global grocery sector, for instance, market concentration is relatively low, and competition may appear healthy, but competition is illusory because the influence of horizontal shareholders is largely
invisible.
The bottom line is that policymakers and antitrust regulators haven’t developed the tools or the teeth to clamp down on 21st century oligopoly power– including the opaque power of financial actors such as private equity andasset management firms.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 12 |
Hidden Power: Closing down information flows
Many of the Food Barons are relative unknowns, and that’s because they are
privately-held or state-owned companies. For example, the colossal firms that
control agricultural commodity trading are among the most powerful andleast-transparent companies. Three of the world’s top-ranking ag commodity
traders are privately held, and one is state-owned, and thus not obliged to
publicly disclose information about their finances. The lack of transparency
means that, in the absence of regulatory oversight, we can’t fully track assets
or determine corporate market share.
As corporate concentration increases, companies are becoming more guarded with their information. In a world where “market intelligence” is proprietary – accessible only to those who can pay for it – it is becoming much moredifficult for civil society, social movements and even some governments toknow the level of food-system control exercised by a handful of multinational enterprises. Access to such information is critical for democracy.
Even firms that are in the business of selling “corporate intelligence” arethemselves consolidating and building steeper paywalls.23

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 13 |
Notes
1
https://www.etcgroup.org/content/backgrounder-smallscale-farmers-and-peasants-still-feed-world
2 https://www.foodsovereignty.org/nyeleni-process/3 See, for example, Eric Holt-Giménez, ‘Our Food System is
Racist: Here’s how to fix it’ 1 December 2017: https://archive.foodfirst.org/news/our-food-system-is-racist-hereshow-to-fix-it
4 FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2021 The State of Food
Security and Nutrition in the World 2021: Transforming food systems
for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all,Rome, 2021, p. xii: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474en .
5 Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “profiteering,” accessed 08 June 2022: https://www.merriam-webster.com/
dictionary/profiteering .
6 FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2021. The State of Food
Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems
for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all.
Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474en.
7 Nathaniel Meyersohn, “Grocery stores are excited to charge
you higher prices,” CNN Business, 18 June 2021: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/18/business/grocery-store-inflation-kroger-albertsons/index.html .
8 Tom Perkins, “Revealed: Top US corporations raising prices
on Americans even as profits surge,” The Guardian, .27 April
2022: www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-corporate-america-increased-prices-profits
9 The Guardian. 2022. Revealed: Top US corporations raising prices on Americans even as profits surge, 27 April
2022. www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-corporate-america-increased-prices-profits
10 Brian Deese, Sameera Fazili, and Bharat Ramamurti, “Recent Data Show Dominant Meat Processing Companies
Are Taking Advantage of Market Power to Raise Prices
and Grow Profit Margins,” The White House, December
10, 2021: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
blog/2021/12/10/recent-data-show-dominant-meat-processing-companies-are-taking-advantage-of-market-power-toraise-prices-and-grow-profit-margins/.
11 The Guardian. 2022. Revealed: Top US corporations raising prices on Americans even as profits surge, 27 April
2022. www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-corporate-america-increased-prices-profits
12 Alex Turnbull, Commodities analyst, quoted in: Tom Perkins, “Revealed: Top US corporations raising prices on
Americans even as profits surge,” The Guardian. 27 April
2022: www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-corporate-america-increased-prices-profits
13 Krista Brown, a policy analyst with the American Economic
Liberties Project, quoted in The Guardian. 2022. Revealed: Top
US corporations raising prices on Americans even as profits
surge, 27 April 2022. www.theguardian.com/business/2022/
apr/27/inflation-corporate-america-increased-prices-profits

14 See Communique 118, “Hijacking Food Systems: technofix takeover at the FSS”, ETC Group, 23 July 2021, https://www.etcgroup.org/content/hijacking-food-systems-technofix-takeover-fss Also in Spanish: https://www.etcgroup.
org/es/content/secuestro-de-los-sistemas-alimentarios
and French: https://www.etcgroup.org/fr/content/corruption-des-systemes-alimentaires
15 See, for example, ETC Group, Who Will Feed Us? The Peasant
Food Web vs the Industrial Food Chain, 18 February 2019: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/new-video-who-will-feed-uspeasant-food-web-vs-industrial-food-chain
16 See, for example, International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), Too big to feed: Exploring theimpacts of mega-mergers, consolidation and concentration of power in
the agri-food sector, October 2017. The report’s Executive Summary can be found here: http://www.ipes-food.org/_img/
upload/files/Concentration_ExecSummary.pdf .
17 Bayer Crop Science, “Tomorrow‘s Innovations Today:
Bayer Crop Science Annual R&D Pipeline Update,” 16 February 2022, p. 42: https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/
files/2022-02/Crop%20Science%20R&D%20Pipeline%20
Update%20Webinar_2022-02-16_Presentation.pdf .
18 Nilay Patel, “John Deere Turned Tractors into Computers— What’s Next? CTO Jahmy Hindman on farming, data,
and right to repair,” The Verge, 15 June 2021: https://www.
theverge.com/22533735/john-deere-cto-hindman-decoderinterview-right-to-repair-tractors .
19 See for example: https://www.mstbrazil.org/content/
corporate-control-agriculture-worldwide-brazil
andhttps://caravanmagazine.in/business/facebook-reliance-farm-laws-banking-retail-dominance .
20 GRAIN, Barbarians at the Barn: private equity sinks its
teeth into agriculture, 29 September 2020: https://grain.
org/en/article/6533-barbarians-at-the-barn-private-equity-sinks-its-teeth-into-agriculture .
21 Public Accountability Initiative (LittleSis) and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project,
Private Equity’s Dirty Dozen, February 2022: https://public-accountability.org/report/private-equitys-dirty-dozen-12firms-dripping-in-oil-and-the-wealthy-executives-who-runthem/
22 Einer R. Elhauge, “The Growing Problem of Horizontal
Shareholding,” Antitrust Chronicle, Vol. 3, June 2017, Competition Policy International, Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 17-36: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2988281.
23 In the past, ETC Group relied on global seed market estimates from market analysts, AgBioInvestor (started by individuals who previously worked for Phillips McDougall),or IHS Markit (the firm that recently acquired Phillips McDougall). In late 2020 financial analytics firm, S&P Global,
announced plans to acquire IHS Markit in a US$44 billion
deal.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Agrochemicals& commercial seeds
Agrochemicals/Pesticides: Companies in the agrochemical sector manufactureand sell pesticides used in agriculture. ETC Group uses the word “pesticide” as asynonym for “agrochemical.” The words “herbicide,” “insecticide” and “fungicide”
refer to different types of agrochemical products (weed killers, insect killers andchemicals used to destroy fungus, respectively). In the wake of recent mega-mergers, at least five of the leading pesticide companies also dominate the world market for commercial seeds and traits. With the commercialization of molecularbiotechnologies in the mid-1990s (e.g., herbicide-tolerant genetically modified
plants), the pesticide and seed sectors became inextricably linked. Today they arebeing further linked by Big Data strategies.
Leading Companies by Agrochemical Sales, 2020
RankingCompany /Headquarters

Agrochem Sales$US millions% GlobalMarket Share1.

ChemChina + SinoChem1 (China)
pro forma (Syngenta Group)

15,336
11,208(Syngenta Group) +4,128 (ADAMA)

24.6

2.

Bayer2 (Germany)

9,976

16.0

3.

BASF (Germany)

7,030

11.3

4.

Corteva4 (USA)

6,461

10.4

5.
6.

TOTAL TOP 4
UPL5 (India)
FMC6 (USA)38,803
4,900
4,642

62.3
7.9
7.4

TOTAL TOP 6
Sumitomo Chemicals7 (Japan)
Nufarm8 (Australia)
Jiangsu Yangnon Chemical Co., Ltd. 9 (China)
Shandong Weifang Rainbow Chemicals Co.,Ltd. 10(China)48,345
4,010
3,491
1,413

77.6
6.4
5.6
2.3

1,048

1.7

TOTAL WORLD MARKET

62,400

100%

7.
8.
9.
10.

Source: ETC Group3

| 15 |The global market for agrochemical products was US$62,400 million in
2020.11••••

ChemChina accounts for one-quarter of the global pesticide market– a share that is likely to expand rapidly following the 2021 merger of
ChemChina + SinoChem (see below).
Top 2 global pesticide market = 41%
Top 4 global pesticide market = 62%
Top 6 global pesticide market = 78%

Commercial Seeds & Traits: The seed sector refers tocrop seeds (primarily proprietary field crop and vegetable seeds) sold via the commercial market and genetically modified crop traits. However, ETC Group’s definition
excludes farmer-saved seed and seed supplied by governments/public institutions. Despite the astonishinglevel of corporate concentration in the global commercial
seed sector, the vast majority of the world’s farmers are
self-provisioning in seeds, and farmer-controlled seed
networks still account for an estimated 80-90% of seeds
and planting material globally.12 Over the past 40 years,
the world’s largest agrochemical firms have used intellectual property laws, mergers and acquisitions (M&As)
and new technologies to take control of the commercial
seed sector. Today, pesticides and commercial seeds are
no longer distinct links of the industrial food chain. However, ETC Group continues to provide corporate rankingsand market share for seeds and agrochemicals as separate sectors. The ‘pure-play’ seed company (that is, a company that focuses primarily on seeds) is a rarity among
the leading companies. Vilmorin (#5) and KWS (#6) are
exceptions.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 16 |
Leading Companies by Seeds & Trait Sales, 2020
RankingCompany /Headquarters

1.
2.

Bayer13 (Germany)
Corteva Agriscience14 (USA)
ChemChina/ Syngenta15(China)3.

Seeds & Trait
Sales$US millions
10,286
7,756% Global Market Share
23
17

3,193

7

4.

BASF16 (Germany)

1,705

4

5.

Groupe Limagrain/ Vilmorin &1,684
Cie17 (France)

4

6.

KWS18 (Germany)

1,494

3

7.
8.
9.

TOTAL TOP 6
DLF Seeds19 (Denmark)
Sakata Seeds20 (Japan)
Kaneko Seeds21 (Japan)

26,118
1,153
648
570

58
3
1.0
1.0

Total World Market

45,000100

Source: ETC Group

According to Jonathan Shoham, Senior Analyst, IHS Markit, the global market for seeds and traits reached $45,000 million in 2020.22••

The top 2 companies control 40% of the global seed market.
The top 6 companies control 58% of the global seed market.

Trends: chew on thisThe global pesticide economy is undergoing tectonic shifts. The
world’s largest agrochemical/seed firms are racing to fortify their oligopoly power with ongoing consolidation, and feverish investments
in high tech and digital platform technologies that are designed to extend their market share. Here ETC examines four, inter-related trends:••••

SuperSized Consolidation: ChemChina + SinoChem = Industrial Ag’s Newest Input Empire
Post-Patent & Generics Drive Pesticide Proliferation
Big Ag’s Digital Turf Grab
New Techno-Fixes: 1) Gene Editing; 2) RNA Pesticide Sprays

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 17 |
Supersized Consolidation: Chemchina + Sinochem = Industrial Ag’s
Newest Input Empire
The long-expected merger of SinoChem and ChemChina (both stateowned) was finalized in early 2021. The colossal Chinese merger creates not
only the world’s largest chemical conglomerate, but also the leading industrial farm input business (seeds, pesticides and fertilizer assets) — all under
the umbrella of the newly formed Syngenta Group. As a result of the merger,
annual sales of the new Syngenta Group (which consolidates all of ChemChina and SinoChem’s ag input assets), will approach an estimated US$27
billion.23 The mega-merger is likely to spur even greater industry consolidation both within China and beyond.
In response to a surging demand for food (especially animal protein), a rapidly expanding middle class, and a diminishing pool of farm labour (80% of
China’s population will live in cities by 205024), China is revving up domestic
food production with a full-throttle embrace of high-tech, industrial agriculture and chemical-intensive inputs.25 With the acquisition of Swiss-based
Syngenta in 2017, the Chinese state aims to ensure that a greater proportionof its industrial farm inputs, agribusiness technologies and intellectual property are China-owned and sourced, while simultaneously expanding export
markets with a global reach.26
Over the past 20 years, China has become the economic center for global
pesticide production, use and export.27 Since 2008, Chinese pesticide exports grew 14% per year. Today, China manufactures more pesticide active
ingredients than the U.S. or the E.U..28 Chinese companies have traditionallyfocused on cheaper ways to manufacture off-patent ag chemicals, rather thaninvest in costly R&D to develop new active ingredients. But now, China isleading on all fronts. In addition to being the world’s leading manufacturer of off-patent and generic pesticides, the Chinese state owns
a multinational ag input powerhouse (Syngenta) with R&D muscle
and a global presence.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 18 |
China’s Ag Input Empire: The union of SinoChem and ChemChina
creates the world’s largest industrial chemicals group, with estimatedrevenues of about US$153 billion per annum29 and 200,000 employees.30 The state-owned conglomerate operates oil and gas explorationand production, oil refining, trading and marketing, agricultural inputs, chemicals, real estate, and financial services business. Guided
by its company motto, “in science we trust,”31 SinoChem’s agriculture division focuses on fertilizer (Sinofert Holdings Co.), and seeds(China National Seed Group Co.) and a rapidly expanding pesticide
portfolio.32 SinoChem already owns two national level pesticide R&D
centers, Shenyang Research Institute of Chemical Industry (SYRICI)and Zhejiang Institute.33 In February 2021 Syngenta announced plansto build a US$230 million R&D centre in the eastern Chinese city ofNanjing that will focus on digital agriculture, chemical pesticides andbiologicals.34 As a result of the merger, annual sales of the new Syngenta Group (which consolidates all of ChemChina and SinoChem’s
ag input assets), will approach an estimated US$27 billion.35 Following a series of mergers and acquisitions, the newly-created Syngenta
Group is straining under a heavy debt load.36 To raise money, ChemChina announced plans to sell a 20% stake in Syngenta Group in an
initial public offering (IPO) on Shanghai’s STAR Market in late 2021,37
but the IPO was temporarily suspended.38

Post-Patent & Generics Drive Pesticide Proliferation
Among the most significant trends in industrial farm inputs: the meteoric
rise of off-patent and generic pesticides, especially in the global South.39 The
explosive growth of generic pesticides was fueled by the expiration of patents on best-selling pesticides (especially Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide,in 2000).
During the same time period (2000-2020), multinational agrochem giants
have been slower to develop new active ingredients for proprietary, high-value chemical products.40 The lag in innovation by multinational agrochem/
seed giants is, in large part, explained by the spiraling costs of bringing a
new active ingredient to market.41 But economists also note that giant corporations operating in highly concentrated markets may have less incentive
to innovate and invest in R&D.42 Moreover, with breakthroughs in ag biotech in the late 1980s and 1990s, the agrochem/seed giants pursued a different
innovation pathway – opting to invest R&D in the genetic engineering ofproprietary seeds that obliged farmers to buy more of the company’s agrochemicals.43 Herbicide tolerance, the trait found in the vast majority of all
genetically engineered crops worldwide – is a classic “technological lock-in”
that is designed to entrench chemical dependence in agriculture and amplify
market power.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 19 |
With adoption of herbicide tolerant crops and massive use of chemical weedkillers (on both genetically engineered [GE] and non-GE crops), more than 250
weed species across 70 countries have evolved resistance to at least one herbicide formula,44 leading farmers to spray more frequently or use multiple weedkillers. Taking just one example: in 1990, U.S. farmers applied an average of 1.8
herbicide sprays to each acre of corn. By 2018, farmers sprayed 3.4 herbicides,
on average, per acre of corn.45 In 2021 Bayer introduced XtendFlex soybeansthat are engineered with triple chemical tolerance (to glufosinate, glyphosate,and dicamba herbicides).46 And if that genetic arsenal doesn’t pack a lethal
punch, Bayer plans to develop six-way herbicide tolerant crops by 2030.47
Over the past 25 years, as patents on blockbuster proprietary products began
to expire, more nimble pesticide manufacturers – especially in China andIndia – have created huge markets by churning out cheaper formulationsof post-patent products. Generic agrochemicals overtook proprietary andoff-patent pesticides for the first time in 2002, and the cheaper off-patentand generic products have dominated the global market ever since.48 By theend of 2013, off-patent products accounted for more than 77% of the total
pesticide market, and that share has continued to grow an average 2% to 3%
each year.49 Today, China supplies almost half of all herbicide global exports,
with glyphosate chief among them.50 India’s herbicide exports (largely glyphosate) grew 19% per year between 2003 and 2015.51 Notably, the world’s
fifth largest agrochemical firm, UPL Ltd. (India), derives 71% of its 2021 FY
revenues from generic pesticides.52
According to industry analysts, between 2017 and 2023, patents will expire on
more than 100 agrochemical products – valued at US$11 billion.53 Althoughmultinational pesticide giants have been slower to innovate with new active
ingredients, they’ve managed to bolster their oligopoly market power, inpart, by reformulating existing active ingredients into “profitable agrochemical cocktails.”54 The multinational giants also rely on negotiating strategic
licensing deals, including access to registration data, for their products thatwill soon go off-patent.55
The bottom line: In recent years, hundreds of generic manufacturers, especially in China and India, have produced a global glut of pesticides thathas helped to drive down the price of many agrochemicals.56 Indiana University professor Annie Shattuck offers a profoundly disturbing but vital assessment of today’s on-the-ground (and in-the-soil) reality: “The structureof global trade and underlying transformations in agrarian life have every bit
as much to do with creating a toxic agriculture as any single corporation. The
post-millennial global pesticide regime is one in which pesticide use is ubiquitous and its impacts are broadly illegible. As capitalist farming continues toexpand around the globe, agrichemicals are traveling with it…Agriculture
is becoming even more dependent on pesticides, not less, especially in the
Global South.” – Annie Shattuck, 202157
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 20 |
Bayer’s Remorse Continues: Monsanto may be history, but its legacy of contaminating human health and the environment lives on.58
Bayer acquired Monsanto for a whopping US$63 billion in 2018, andcontinues to pay the price. Bayer has been forced to commit US$11.6
billion – plus another US$4.5 billion59 toward future claims – to settle around 125,000 existing claims and lawsuits by users of Roundup(generic name: glyphosate) who allege that the Monsanto productscaused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.60 The tragedy, of course, isthat due to generic knock-offs, glyphosate exports and use have proliferated throughout the global South. However, numerous local jurisdictions and countries (e.g., Mexico, Vietnam, Germany) have initiated plans to restrict, phase out or ban glyphosate products.61

Big Ag’s Digital Turf Grab
The world’s largest agrochemical/seed firms have fortified their market control via consolidation and mega-mergers; now they are feverishly investing in
high-tech and digital technologies that can further expand their already-solid
oligopoly. They are not alone; other corporate titans, sitting atop their own
sectors – fertilizer giants, ag equipment manufacturers, big tech – are muscling their way into the digital ag arena.
In the past half-decade, the biggest players in global agriculture consolidated to
produce the Fat Four (Bayer, Corteva Agriscience, Syngenta Group/ChemChina, BASF) amid a dramatic onslaught of digital technologies that invite – almost
require – cross-sectoral convergence. “Data is the new soil” – now a common metaphor to suggest digital information’s ubiquitous and foundational role
– also points to the reality that Big Data is becoming the prerequisite, the milieu
and the means of producing agricultural commodities. The world’s biggest datacompanies – Apple, Alibaba, Amazon, IBM, Google, Baidu, Microsoft, among
others – are now tightly entangled with industrial food production.
The reach of digital food and ag is rapidly expanding to peasant and smallholder
agriculture in the global South.62 Digital technologies offer new forms of control and value extraction that threaten to further usurp farmer autonomy anddecision making while facilitating and expediting a new era of land grabbing.63

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 21 |Big Data down on the farm can include historical as well as real-timeand predicted weather information and crop yields, commodity market information, units of seeds bought and planted, input prices, fertilizer dosage, plot measurements and mapping, soil nutrient levels, soil
carbon levels, crop moisture levels, etc. The data is collected, stored,
and analyzed with the help of algorithms to make automated on-farmdecisions that are touted to improve efficiency and increase profitability. Driverless car technologies, face recognition technologies, robotics
and artificial intelligence, machine learning, drone technologies, imaging and sensing technologies, cloud computing, blockchain technologies, mobile apps and more all play a role on the world’s biggest
industrial farms.

The justifications for using Big Data to advance and ultimately realize “precision
agriculture” are already familiar and vary little from the arguments pushing forthe acceptance of GMOs more than a generation ago: we are told that foodproduction is inefficient, unpredictable and imprecise and so we must leverage newly-available technologies to produce more food more reliably (i.e., increase yields) for a growing global population – without increasing the needfor land and while reducing negative environmental impacts from agriculture.64
Data-driven decision-making, it is claimed, will allow farmers to increase yields
even while reducing herbicide- and fertilizer-use because input-prescriptions
will be meticulously accurate, down to the level of the field, the row, and eventhe individual plant. These automated prescriptions will, ostensibly, save farmers time, money and labour – and the environment wins, too.
Always More Room for Profit: Critics of Big Ag are rightfully dubiousthat the world’s largest input producers are working hard to find ways tosell less product. We can be sure, in any case, the Fat Four won’t sacrificeprofitability and they will aim to offset reductions in traditional input sales– if, indeed, there are any reductions65 – with increased sales of other products, which may include ‘tailored’ or site-specific inputs developed using
collected, on-farm data. As Mao Feng, chief brand manager for Syngenta
Group’s MAP (digital agriculture platform in China, see Table below) explains: “Before, we sold pesticides, seeds and fertiliser. Now we’re a farmservices company – we sell service and technology…selling individual
products, we had hit the ceiling, there was no more room.”66 The new business model is vertical integration under the rubric of farm management
services: instead of limiting sales to seed plus a linked-herbicide (Roundup Ready corn seed and Roundup, for example), seed/pesticide firms arenow selling (the promise of) high-yielding, weed-free, bug-free fields.67 To
that end, the products for sale may include data-driven input recommendations by a company-linked consultant/agronomist (increasingly referred
to as a “trusted advisor”),68 modelling of potential profits based on preResearch by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 22 |
dicted weather plus the application of additional proprietary products, soil
sampling via in-field sensors and field-scouting via drone on a fee-per-passbasis,69 etc. The aim is not to profit, necessarily, from the sale of digital
tools or app subscriptions – BASF’s xarvio Field Manager app, for example, is free to download from the App Store; the aim is to sell data-driven
farm management services – including traditional inputs – while collecting
valuable on-farm data.

Every leading agrochemical company offers its own digital ag platform
marketed to farmers as a way to transform on-farm data into savings
that will ultimately increase farm profitability. The Holy Grail, they say,is a “farm of one,”70 where a single farmer/data manager (equippedwith many thumbs, perhaps?) can log on to a connected device,
watch as the algorithms calculate input prescriptions – based on datacollected from in-field sensors and hyperspectral imaging – and thensend those prescriptions to a fleet of contracted drones that will dump
herbicide, fungicide, fertilizer, growth regulator or other input in ajust-right dosage for each plant growing in the field. Post harvest, thefarmer can supposedly sit back and enjoy the profits from increased
crop sales and reduced labour costs – as well as from payments for‘carbon sequestration’ verified by traceability data collected and stored
on a blockchain.

However, like varieties of breakfast cereals, there are already a dizzying number of digital ag platform names, tie-ins, co-branding, giveaways and corporate partnerships, blurring the lines between owners and partners.71 That lackof clarity has added to farmers’ already significant wariness about handing
over their farm data via digital ag tools.72 In the context of industrial agriculture, farmers know that competing industrial ag peers, market speculators,commodity traders, landowners/buyers and input developers could all benefit from access to on-farm data related to soil quality, inputs, weeds, pests
and yield.73 If Big Ag companies can’t overcome these ‘trust challenges,’ they
will try to sweeten the pot in other ways (see below). The following table
presents the biggest seed/agrochemical companies with a sampling fromtheir ever-expanding menu of digital ag services.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 23 |
Digital Ag Bumper Crop or Data Boosting Product Cross-Fertilization?
Syngenta Group (ChemChina)
Digital Ag Platform

AgriEdge; Cropio (E. Europe); Cropwise (Brazil); Modern Agricultural
Platform – MAP (China, developed by SinoChem Agriculture, has on- and offline components).

Some
Components

Ag Connections (Syngenta subsidiary, farm management software); FarmShots (Syngenta subsidiary, satellite imagery); Land.db (software for data collection, analysis – USA); Cropwise Protector (operations management, data
analysis) and Cropwise Imagery (satellite remote sensing – both in Brazil);
MAP Zhinong for field crops and MAP Huinong for cash crops (China); ADAMA (part of Syngenta Group) Eagle Eye (drone analytics platform, Agremo
technology).

InterOperability,
Collaborations

FarmShots integrated with Sony’s Smart Agricultural Solutions;
AgriEdge integrated with Nutrien’s Echelon (fertilizer) precision ag tool;Land.db integrated with Simplot Grower Solutions and with Truterra Insights Engine (USA); Ram Trucks (USA; a new truck = one-year free subscription to AgriEdge); Syngenta MAP collaborating with Dole (and with Disney
to market two Disney-branded tomato varieties).
Bayer

Digital Ag Platform

Climate FieldView (Monsanto asset) in N. America, S. America, Europe (including Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Ukraine); Climate FarmRise (digital
app in India).

Some Components

FieldView Drive, Precision Planting 20/20, SeedSense and YieldSense(monitors for data-collection and -sharing); Digital Mapping of soil, cloud
cover, seed population-to-yield; Seed Scripts (seed placement); Seed Advisor (corn seed selection and placement); Disease Risk Modelling, Fertility
Scripting (input timing and rate recommendations).

InterOperability, Collaborations

Bayer’s Friends with FieldView web page lists 60+ collaborating companies, big and small, whose digital services are integrated with or connected to
Climate FieldView: imaging, sensor, farm management, farm machinery, soil
analytics, “profit mapping” (e.g., Ag-Analytics) and farm insurance companies;
collaboration with TraceHarvest Network (BlockApps blockchain, China,
Brazil and USA) and collaboration with Ant Financial (blockchain, China);
collaboration with Biome Makers (AI virtual assistant in development – input
recommendations and yield predictions using soil microbiome and environmental data); research partnership with XAG (ag drones) in South East Asia andPakistan, Japan; part of AGROS, collaboration between Wageningen University & Research and 26 private partners, including BASF and Kubota(autonomous growing); strategic partnership with Rantizo (drone integration
software using DJI drones).

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 24 |
BASF
Digital Ag Platform

BASF Digital Farming; xarvio Digital Farming Solutions.

Some Components

xarvio Field Manager (mobile app, real-time field information, recommendations);
xarvio SCOUTING (app to identify weeds/diseases); GrowSmart Advantage Tool
(USA, uses farm data to estimate the monetary advantage of using BASF products).

InterOperability, Collaborations

Salient Predictions (long-range weather forecasting) integrated into xarvio;
BASF Digital Farming joint venture with Bosch selling two products: Intelligent Planting Solution (IPS) (seed, fertilizer prescriptions) and Smart
Spraying (camera sensor with xarvio); collaboration with Bosch (Curitiba,
Brazil, targeted fertilizer application and seed placement); BASF Vegetable
Seeds, part of AGROS, collaboration between Wageningen University &Research and 26 private partners, including Bayer and Kubota (autonomous growing); partnership with Hoogendoorn Growth Management(autonomous growing, software and hardware); collaboration with Zen-noh,farmer co-op in Japan (farmer alert system); agreement with AGvisorPRO (agronomic advisors for xarvio users, Canada); xarvio SCOUTING integrated with
Nutrien Ag Solutions (fertilizer prescriptions); xarvio SCOUTING integrated with WinField United’s ATLAS digital platform; xarvio Field Manager
integrated with senseFly’s eBee X fixed-wing drone platform.
Corteva Agriscience

Digital Ag Platform

GranularSome Components

Seed Prescriptions; Directed Scouting; Fertilizer Management; Nitrogen Monitoring; Pioneer seed App; Pioneer Yield Pyramid decision
tool; Corteva Flight (stand assessments for corn, sunflower, lettuce; gap
analysis, soybeans; Carbon and Ecosystem Services portfolio (agronomy
support, carbon advisory services and access to carbon markets).

Inter-Operability,
Collaborations

DroneDeploy (field monitoring software, used in Corteva’s 600 drones andby the company’s 1000+ drone pilots).
UPL

Digital Ag Platform

nurture.farm (India, pilot projects in the U.S., South Africa, Brazil and Australia).

Some Components

Cultiv-e platform (Brazil, info sharing with UPL customers about soybean
diseases, highlighting two UPL fungicides).

InterOperability, Collaborations

Collaboration with TeleSense (AI platform to monitor condition of stored grain – relevant for sale of UPL’s fumigant pesticides); collaboration with Taranis UAS FlyUP (Brazil,
aerial mapping of weeds, diseases in sugarcane fields and herd monitoring in pastures).
FMC

Digital Ag Platform

Arc farm intelligence

Some Components

Mobile app action alerts; connection to FMC agronomists; uses open API (appinterface) that allows Arc to work with other companies’ digital ag tools; Pest
Pressure Dashboard (predictive modelling and analytics).

InterOperability, Collaborations

Investment in Scanit Technologies; partnership with Scanit to use its SporeCam wireless sensor in Brazil to analyze Asian soybean rust; partnership with Nutrien Ag Solutions (sending data from Arc to Nutrien’s pest control advisors(California); partnership with AI developer Shenzhen SenseAgro Technology
Co., Ltd. (China, Fall Armyworm identification and control with FMC products).

Sources: ETC Group; Yating Jiang, “Rising to Transform Agricultural Production – How Agrochemical Titans
Unlock the Potential of Digital Agriculture,” 09 March 2021, AgroPages:
http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---38263.htm.
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 25 |“[Block]Chain, Chain, Chain… You got me where you want me…”
When Bayer joined forces with blockchain platform company BlockApps
to create a digital, global replacement for ‘high friction manual tracking’ inthe ag sector, they came up with the “highly scalable”74 TraceHarvest Network. The blockchain uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud and computing infrastructure and will follow agricultural products all along the foodchain from seed source to grocery shelf (or front door). The advantage of using blockchain’s electronic ledger technology, say its promoters, is that everytransactional record (e.g., contract, input purchase, sale, transport, delivery)is secure, time-stamped and authenticated; and it’s impervious to tampering
because the blocks are transparent – everyone on the blockchain platformsees each transaction as it happens, in real-time.75
The vision for the TraceHarvest Network (see image, below) is to one day bringevery big commercial player (and regulatory entity) active in the industrial foodsystem on to one common digital platform – inputs, equipment, technology,
processing, retailing, financing, logistics. Why? According to Stan Dotson, whojoined BlockApps as a Senior Advisor in early 2021 after 30+ years at Monsanto (plus two years working for Bayer as VP of Digital Strategy and Transformation), Big Ag is under threat from “consumer backlash” due to a “trust crisis.”76
High-profile food safety recalls have resulted in consumers favouring local and/or known producers. (In the same breath, Dotson also laments the “irrational
preferences” of consumers who want their food “free-from-everything.”77) He
sees blockchain, and TraceHarvest Network in particular, as a way to counter the
buy-local, know-your-farmer trends. If blockchains are perceived to be verifiable
and tamper-proof – some refer to digital transactions stored as blockchained
data the “Single Source of Truth” (SSoT)78 – then TraceHarvest can help Big Ag
overcome its “trust challenges” with consumers. In fact, some blockchains havebeen breached and are vulnerable to cybercrime.79
Big Ag’s Recipe for CarbonEra? Tracing food back to its seed source is justone “use-case” for TraceHarvest, however, on its FAQ page, TraceHarvest
claims its blockchain technology “promotes both sustainability and consumer
well-being through solutions including carbon offset crediting, outcome-based
pricing, and safer, faster food recalls.”80 The focus on safer food recalls, rather
than safer food, reveals a great deal about Big Ag’s thinking. Tracing carbon
may turn out to be TraceHarvest’s most useful use-case for the agrochemical/
seed company that helped design it. While Bayer piloted its own limited program in 2020 in Brazil and the U.S. – paying farmers to adopt so-called climate
smart farming practices (e.g., no till or cover crop) – actually verifying increases in soil carbon wasn’t part of the program. The terms for participation in Bayer’s carbon program were a requirement to plant corn or soybeans, having anactive “FieldView Plus” digital ag account and agreeing to share relevant farmdata.81 It was assumed that following Bayer’s recipe would result in increased
soil carbon; however, greenhouse gas emissions from energy-hungry blockchains or from data transport, storage and processing are not accounted for.
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 26 |
In tandem with, and under the umbrella of digital ag services, carbon credit
schemes for farmers have proliferated in the last half-decade, particularly in Europe and the U.S..82 So far, carbon market schemes for agriculture are in earlystages with both big and small players: startups Nori (U.S.) and Indigo Ag (U.S.),
Soil Capital (U.K.) and Soil Heroes (Europe and U.K.) are competing with Bayer,
Corteva and Nutrien. The U.S.-based Ecosystem Services Market Consortium(ESMC) will launch a nation-wide carbon market in 2022. Bayer, Syngenta andCorteva were early ESMC partners and have pledged financial support.83 They arealso helping to create the methods “to measure, verify and monetize increases insoil carbon,” reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and improved water quality in agriculture. Despite Big Ag’s shadow looming over ESMC, it claims
to be an independent, non-profit, third-party provider of soil carbon verification.
With data-sharing a sticking point for farmers but a crucial need for Big Ag to sustain its new business model, carbon payouts could be the way to bring farmers
around and overcome its many “trust challenges.”(Source: BlockApps webinar, 202084)

New Techno-Fixes: gene editing and RNA-based pesticide sprays
If the pesticide/seed industry giants can take dominant positions in digital
farming platforms and a new generation of gene editing and/or RNA pesticide technologies, they are poised to capture new platforms that could provide new technological ‘lock-ins’ – obliging farmers and end-users to adopt a
new and expanded menu of proprietary ag inputs and digital services.85
Faced with expiring patents, herbicide-resistant weeds, the rise of genericpesticides, and efforts by some governments (especially the EU) to rein in
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 27 |
chemical toxins, agrochemical/seed giants are looking to fortify their oligopoly power with the rollout of novel, proprietary genetic technologies, mostprominently :gene editing and RNA-based pesticide sprays. Although thesetechnologies involve very different techniques, they both seek to concentrate corporate power and reinforce industrial agriculture. There are striking
similarities in the way they are being introduced and promoted:• The biotech industry touts them as tools that will bring faster, precise andhighly predictable changes to the genomes of plants, animals and microbes.
• To win consumer acceptance and avoid any association with GMOs,
industry insists that neither technology involves the use of genetic
engineering (transgenic technology) and therefore must not be subject to GMO regulations.
• In their haste to attract investors and bring to market 21st century
techno-fixes, corporate labs and start ups scarcely acknowledge hugeknowledge gaps and associated risks.
We look at these in more detail below.
1. Gene editing: Biotech’s Silver Bullet for Food & Ag
What is gene editing?
Genome editing techniques are a form of genetic engineering (GE)used to alter the genetic material of an organism, plant or animal(including humans) by inserting, deleting or changing the DNA at a
specific target site in the genome. A number of genome-editing technologies are currently being used in food and agriculture. The mostwell-known among these is the CRISPR-enzyme system (e.g., CRISPR-Cas9, CRISPR-CPF1, etc.) CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, and DNA-cutting enzymes are
generally called nucleases. Other gene-editing technologies include
TALEN (Transcription activator-like effector nucleases) and ZFN (Zincfinger nucleases). CRISPR-Cas9 made headlines outside scientific circles in 2020 when the scientists who discovered it (Jennifer Doudna
and Emmanuelle Charpentier) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In the food and agriculture arena, Big Ag multinationals and small tech start-ups
tout gene editing as a fast, precise and predictable breeding technology that willrapidly deliver “innovative” traits – from non-browning mushrooms to waxy
corn to fungus-resistant wheat with fatter grains.86 Not surprisingly, the firstgene-edited crop commercialized in North America was herbicide-tolerant – acanola variety developed by Cibus, which can withstand a dousing of an herbicide manufactured by the Canadian company Rotam. (The product was introduced as an alternative to Roundup Ready canola after Monsanto’s herbicide
stopped working when weeds became resistant to it.) In an odd about-face thecompany later claimed their product was not gene-edited at all.87
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 28 |
Beyond applications in plants, CRISPR is also being widely developed forgene-editing in livestock (e.g., pigs, cows, sheep, goats and chicken), insects
and microbes (to boost productivity, soil fertility, disease resistance, andmore).88 If that extensive tinkering sounds worrisome, headlines like theseare designed to demolish any obstacles to public acceptance:“Crispr Can Help Solve Our Looming Food Crisis” – Wired (i.e.,transform the food supply to one that can survive the ravages of climate change).89“Can Gene Editing Save the World’s Chocolate?” – National Geographic (i.e., climate tolerant and disease-resistant cacao)90“Why Gene Editing Is A Climate Change Solution” – Seed World(i.e., reduce greenhouse gas emissions, capture carbon, and makecrops more resilient to the impacts of climate change)“Gene Editing Could Protect Your Favorite Foods” – Innovature(i.e., will ensure the survival of chocolate, coffee, wine, bananas,oranges, etc., with plants that are higher yielding, climate- and disease-resistant, as well as water- and nutrient-efficient).91, 92

Most gene-edited crops are still in the pipeline. A handful are being soldcommercially and many more are soon-to-be-released. Calyxt’s high oleic,
reduced saturated fat soybean oil was commercially launched in the U.S.
in 2019.93 Corteva’s waxy corn (used primarily for industrial corn starch and
CRISPR-engineered for higher yields) was cleared for release by Canadian
regulators in 2020 without a risk assessment, and has already been deemeda category of GMO outside the purview of regulatory oversight in Argentina,
Brazil and Chile.94 Sanatech’s CRISPR tomato (engineered to contain heightened levels of an amino acid that reportedly lowers blood pressure) received
approval in Japan in early 2021, but its launch will be limited due to an intellectual property (IP) conflict (cultivation will be restricted to home gardeners
who will be prohibited from selling or distributing the tomatoes).95
Although the basic research on CRISPR and other gene editing tools like TALEN
has been conducted primarily in public research institutions,96 many of the firstgene-edited products are coming from tech start-ups that were spawned by academic scientists.97 Agrochemical and seed giants are conducting in-house R&D, as
well as collaborating with and/or licencing technology from smaller companies.
Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, the scientists who won theNobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for discovering CRISPR-Cas9, are closely associated with at least three of the start-ups actively commercialising the technology for food and agriculture. Doudna is the co-founder of Caribou Biosciences, which has funding support from food giant Mars, and she sits on thescientific advisory board of Inari Agriculture. Charpentier is the co-founder ofResearch by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 29 |ERS Genomics (the company’s sole focus is to maximize commercial licensing of a global patent portfolio related to gene editing owned by Universityof California Berkeley).98 Dr. Feng Zhang and other members of the Broad
Institute in Boston, U.S.A. also stake key patent claims to CRISPR techniques. They are among the founders of the start-up Pairwise.99 Since 2016,
The Broad Institute (MIT/Harvard) and UC Berkeley have waged a fierce andcomplicated patent dispute over key IP claims related to CRISPR.100 Doudna
and her colleagues at Caribou have exclusively licensed CRISPR to Corteva
for use in corn and soybeans, while Zhang and his colleagues have licensed
more liberally to Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, Simplot and Pairwise.
Common(s) Mistake: The Genome Editing Patent Landgrab There’s anoft-repeated claim that CRISPR is “a democratizing tool” – suggesting that it is
widely utilized and universally accessible.101,102, 103 In reality, the ag biotech industry is scrambling to win monopoly patents on gene-editing technologies, withhigh-stakes bidding over exclusive and non-exclusive licensing deals. IPStudies
notes that around 200 patent families are published every month on CRISPR related nucleases, including a growing number of applications from China.104
Corteva Agriscience, the world’s 2nd largest seed company and 4th ranking pesticide firm, overwhelmingly dominates patent applications related togene editing nucleases in the crop and seed sector, with more than 70 applications.105 In 2018, Corteva, the Broad Institute (MIT/Harvard) and otherdiscoverers of CRISPR-Cas9 created a patent pool comprising 48 patents thatinvolve key CRISPR tools for the gene editing of plants.106 The Munich-based
Institute for Independent Impact Assessment in Biotechnology (Testbiotech.
org) notes that any plant breeder interested in gaining access to comprehensive use of CRISPR-cas9 will have to obtain licenses from this pool, which islikely to make it costly or prohibitive for many breeders. Testbiotech likens
Corteva’s control of key patents related to genome editing to a “hidden patent cartel” (the licensing contracts are confidential).107
Bayer, the world’s top-ranking commercial seed company and 2nd largest
pesticide firm, holds international patent applications on approximately 50
nucleases; KWS has around 30 applications, and Cellectis/Calyxt around20.108 In the case of granted European patents on site-directed nucleases forapplication in crops, Corteva holds around 30, while Bayer, Cellectis, BASF
and Keygene each hold fewer than 10.
Industry’s Quest to De-Regulate Gene Editing in the U.S. and E.U.:
Proponents maintain that gene editing and GMOs are distinct because the
CRISPR technique does not rely on the insertion of DNA from a different species(although it may include DNA from other species in some instances).109
And they insist that gene editing techniques achieve the same results as conventional breeding, only much faster and far more efficiently.110

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 30 |
Sampling of Genome-Editing Companies Involved in Food and Agriculture
Public / Private

Business Focus
in Food andAgriculture

Annual Revenue or Equity
Investment
RaisedUS$ million

AgBiome (2012,
USA)

PrivateBiological andsynthetic pesticides; crop traits~15.68111
Revenue

Inari (2016, USA)

PrivateCrop traits (corn,soy, wheat)

352113
Investment

Cibus (2001, USA)

PrivateCrop traits (canola, rice, soybean,
wheat, corn)~131.3115 Investment

Calyxt (2010, USA)(subsidiary of Cellectis, which owns
TALEN)

PublicCrop traits (winter23.9117
oats, soybeans,
Revenue
hemp, high fibre
wheat, alfalfa)

Caribou Biosciences(2011, USA)

Public(IPO, July
2021)

Licenses its CRISPR/Cas9 technology

Company(Year founded,
Headquarters)

ERS Genomics (2014,
PrivateIreland)120
Arcadia Biosciences(2002, USA)

PublicPairwise (2017, USA)

Tropic Biosciences(2016, UK)

PrivatePublic (IPO
Benson Hill Biosyste- May 2021,
ms (2012, USA)after SPAC
merger)126

Food & Ag R&D Collaborators
The Mosaic Company, Genective [JV: Limagrain and KWS],
BASF112Beck’s (US seed retailer, corntraits), Mertec (soybean germplasm), M.S. Technologies (trait
provider)114
GDM (soybean genetics), Valley
Oils Partners (vegetable oils)116
NRGene (software), Perdue AgriBusiness (soybean seed), S&W
Seed Company (alfalfa)

Corteva AgriScience (Corteva
115 Investment in
has exclusive license to Caribou
pre-IPO funding,technology in corn, soybeans;
304 raised in IPO,
joint research on off-target
July 2021118
effects of gene editing)119
Licenses its CRISNippon Gene Co., G+FLAS Life
PR/Cas9 technol- N/ASciences, Axxam (all non-excluogy
sive licensing)
Ardent Mills; Corteva AgriHemp, wheat,
8,034121
Science; Arista Cereal Seeds Pty
safflower (oilRevenue
Ltd; Bay State Milling Company
products)(all wheat)122
Crop traits (kale,
115123Bayer (trait development in corn,mustard greens, Investment
soybeans, wheat, canola andcorn, soybeans,
cotton); Plant Sciences, Inc. withwheat, canola,~9.19124
USDA (gene-edited berries)
cotton, berries)
Revenue
Genus Plc (porcine and bovine
Crop traits (cof38.5125
genetics); BASF (trait developfee, bananas, rice) Investment
ment)
282.3 InvestMars, Inc. (cacao traits); GDM
127
Crop traits (soyment(soybean breeding); Rose Acrebean, yellow pea, 71.5
Farms (soybean processing);
corn)
Revenue in first
Beck’s (US seed retailer, corn
128
half of 2021
traits)Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 31 |
Elo Life Systems (subsidiary of Precision
Biosciences; Precision PlantSciencPrivate
es formed 2012;
renamed Elo Life
Systems 2018, USA
and Australia)129

Crop traits (canola, watermelon,
vanilla, bananas,
chickpeas)130

24.3
Total revenue ofparent company,
including Elo Life
Systems

Sanatech Seed Co.
Ltd. (2018, Japan),Privateventure launched by
University of Tsukuba

High GABA
tomatoN/A

Yield10 Bioscience(founded as Metabo- Public
lix, 1992, USA)

Crop traits incanola, soybean,corn, sorghum,
rice and wheat. 133

0.8134

Cargill (reduced-fat canola oil);
Dole (disease-resistant bananas);
BASF, Bayer, Corteva, 131 Avoca(Clary Sage plants for extractionof sclareol, used in fragrances)

Pioneer EcoScience (distributor of Pioneer brand products[Corteva AgriScience] in Japan,
development of High GABA
tomato)132
Bayer (soybean), Forage Genetics (sorghum), Simplot (potato),
GDM (soybean) – all non-exclusive research licenses; 135 Rothamsted Research, UK, omega-3
oils136

In a concerted campaign to win public acceptance and side-step regulations,the biotech industry is lobbying intensely to ensure that its proprietary, geneedited plants and animals will be excluded from existing GMO regulations andlabelling requirements. In the U.S. regulatory arena, industry has exceeded its
goals. In response to pressure from the Trump White House, in 2020 the US
Department of Agriculture announced its decision to deregulate oversight ofmost genetically modified plants and seeds (including gene edited-plants andseeds) and proposed a similar de-regulation of gene-edited animals.137 (Thenew rules are being challenged in court.138) In contrast, the European Union(EU) has thus far upheld stricter regulatory oversight of gene editing. A 2018
ruling by the European Court of Justice requires genome-edited crops to be
subject to the same regulations as GMOs. However, a 2021 study by Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that a powerful biotech lobby is campaigning
aggressively to overturn the E.U.’s precautionary stance and ensure that new
gene-editing techniques are excluded from existing GMO rules. If the industry
lobby prevails, gene-edited plants, animals and microorganisms would not be
subject to risk assessment, monitoring or consumer labelling in Europe.139
Risks, Unexpected Consequences, Knowledge Gaps With hype andhoopla paving the way for the rapid deployment of gene editing in foodand farming, biotech boosters have conveniently overlooked or ignored a
growing body of scientific evidence that points to potential risks related togene-editing technologies, including CRISPR-Cas9.140
Recent studies indicate that, far from being precise and predictable, genome
edits may often result in unwanted changes and unpredictable outcomes. A
2020 report by Testbiotech on new genetic engineering technologies explains

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 32 |
the “potential for unforeseen genomic interactions, genomic irregularities andunintended biochemical alterations” in two main categories:• Off-target effects occur when genome editing introduces a change at anadditional, unintended site of the genome in addition to the intended (target) location.
• Even if the edit is achieved at the targeted site, unintended on-target effects
relate to possible deletions and rearrangements of DNA, or gene interactions that were not anticipated.141
Unexpected effects could involve changes in the chemistry, biochemical
pathways or protein composition of an edited organism, with potential implications for food safety and biodiversity (such as altering toxicity or allergenicity). Despite widespread R&D and a rush to market gene-edited organisms, there are enormous gaps in the scientific literature on understanding of
how new traits could impact the environment, particularly if they introduce
novel compounds. A 2020 report written by Janet Cotter and Dana Perls,
published by Logos Environmental, Canadian Biotechnology Action Groupand Friends of the Earth offers a comprehensive overview.142

With the advent of gene editing, it becomes technically possible to develop a far more dangerous and disruptive technology: gene drives. Gene drives are a new genetic engineering technology that seeks to rapidly spread human-directed genetic changes
through entire populations of animals, insects and plants. Unlike first
generation GMOs targeting commercial crops, gene drive organisms(GDOs) can be designed to manipulate both domesticated and wild
populations. Gene drives aim to be invasive – to persist and to spread
and, in some cases, even to extinguish an entire population or species;
early proponents suggest the use of gene drives to spread “auto- extinction” genes to wipe out agricultural “pests.” So far only smaller
start-ups such as Agragene are openly developing gene-drives for agriculture – mostly in insects. In June 2021 scientists successfully implemented gene drives in crops for the first time.
See ETC Group’s December 2019 report: Gene Drive Organisms: An introduction to a dangerous new technology putting Africans at risk: https://www.etcgroup.
org/tags/gene-drives .

2. RNAi Pesticide Sprays
The Fat Four pesticide powerhouses (Bayer, BASF, Corteva and Syngenta),
as well as many high-tech start-ups, are actively developing novel pesticide
spray technologies, based on synthetic, ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules,
that are designed for widespread release in farmers’ fields and in forests.143
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 33 |
“Gene-silencing pesticides,” also known as RNA interference or RNAi pesticides144 are designed to kill pests by switching off or “silencing” genes essential for the organism’s survival. RNAi is the molecule of the moment, andRNAi is biotech’s newest techno-fix for agriculture.
For agrochemical giants, the appeal of “RNA-based biocontrol” sprays is irresistible: they seek to manipulate the cellular machinery of an insect, weed
or pest and claim that it is all based on natural, biological processes – enabling them to escape scrutiny from pesky GMO regulators and a public that
overwhelmingly rejects GMOs. Despite major gaps in knowledge about theenvironmental, health and safety impacts of this novel pesticide technology,
RNAi-based insecticidal sprays are already being field tested in the U.S.145
How does it work? First discovered in 1998,146 RNA interference (RNAi) involves the use of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to block messenger RNA
from performing its usual function (that is, instructions to make a specificprotein within the cell).147 RNAi can potentially switch off the specific nucleotide sequences that are unique to a target pest without harming beneficial insects or humans. One biotech booster likens the targeted precision ofRNAi-based pesticides to “smart bombs” used in the military.148
Just like conventional pesticides, RNAi-based products could be sprayed on
crops, injected into soil or tree roots. When applied to a crop, the RNAi pesticide could kill the targeted pest on contact, or after the bug munches ona leaf and ingests the pesticide that has been absorbed by the plant. Eitherway, the interfering RNA enters the insect’s gut and turns off a gene that isessential for its survival. The pest ultimately dies.
Beyond Sprays: RNAi molecules can also be delivered within a geneticallyengineered crop plant or insect. Crops that are genetically engineered withtraits triggered by RNAi are not new,149 but in 2022 Bayer (formerly Monsanto) plans to sell the first GE crop that contains insecticidal RNAi in its genes– a genetically modified corn variety equipped with RNAi to kill the Westerncorn rootworm; in addition, the “SmartStax” corn will be loaded with Bayer’s proprietary Bt toxins.150
Bringing Toxic Chemicals Back to Life? In the longer term, agrochemical firms are also exploring a far more lucrative pursuit: how to silence
enzymes in weeds that make them resistant to cash-cow chemical weedkillers like glyphosate.151 The use of RNAi for genetic “reversal” of glyphosate resistance in weeds aims to expand and fortify markets for geneticallyengineered herbicide tolerant traits, and entrench the use of older, chemical products. To avoid public controversy, industry is likely to focus initialefforts on RNAi products that are deemed more socially and environmentally acceptable (i.e., the use of RNAi bio-based sprays to substitute fordangerous chemicals).
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 34 |
Research and development (R&D) on RNAi pesticide sprays is gaining traction because the technology can be developed relatively fast, without the
public stigma, cost or constraints associated with existing GMO regulations.152 The success of closely related mRNA technology in Covid-19 vaccines
will also be played upon to build public support. In addition, it’s getting a lot
cheaper to manufacture synthetic RNA strands. A gram of RNA initially cost
upwards of US$100,000. The price plummeted to US$100 a gram in 2014,
and now it’s under a dollar per gram.153
Proponents of RNAi pesticide technologies claim:• RNAi sprays are designed with “precise target specificity,” and are
based on natural, biological processes that enable the interfering
RNA to dismantle the protein-making cellular machinery of a target
insect, weed or other pest without harming non-target organisms.
• RNAi molecules will degrade rapidly, with little or no environmental
impact.
• RNAi pesticide sprays are not a form of genetic engineering because“the nucleotide sequences in dsRNA pesticides do not code for protein, and are not inserted into the genome and are not heritable liketransgenes.”154
What Could Go Wrong? In stark contrast, critics of the technology assertthat RNAi pesticides must be regulated as a form of genetic engineering.
While the RNAi spray itself is not genetically engineered, the technology isdesigned to modify organisms in the open environment. According to a report by ateam of scientists at Friends of the Earth: “Organisms may start out life as
non-GMO and be modified partway through their life, constituting a vast,
open-air genetic experiment.”155 RNAi pesticides can result in genetic changes in exposed organisms as well as altered traits that can be passed down tooffspring.156 Scientists have documented ways in which interfering RNAs canresult in heritable alterations.157
RNAi pesticide sprays are a novel technology designed for widespread environmental release. As science writer Antonio Regalado put it in his 2015 article for Technology Review: “RNA may be natural. But introducing large amountsof targeted RNA molecules into the environment is not.”158 There are enormous knowledge gaps, and a host of potential risks.
Despite industry’s claims of “precise target specificity,” a study published by
Monsanto (now Bayer) in 2018 found that its genetically engineered cornequipped with RNAi to kill the Western corn rootworm also killed non-target
beetles in laboratory experiments.159
How will RNAi degrade and where will it go? Do degraded RNAi molecules
pose a risk to target or non-target organisms? Double-sided RNA molecules
are larger and heavier than molecules in conventional pesticides.160 Will synResearch by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 35 |
thetic RNA spread via groundwater? The question is relevant because proponents envision delivery of RNAi pesticide sprays via irrigation.161
Plant scientists already know that insects, pests and weeds can evolve resistance to RNAi pesticides, just as they have to conventional sprays (bothchemical and biological). Laboratory tests have already confirmed this scenario.162
Special Delivery? Potential ecological and human health risks are made evenmore complex because a number of companies are conducting research on
novel delivery mechanisms to enhance the efficacy of RNAi sprays. Companies
seek to encapsulate the RNAi in synthetic nanoparticles – so that the interfering RNA can penetrate plant cells more efficiently, or to make them degrade
more slowly in the environment. The fate of engineered nanoparticles in theenvironment and their impact on the health and safety of target or non-target organisms raises even more unanswered questions.163 ETC Group has beenmonitoring the development of nano-scale technologies since 2000. Most
scientists agree that many engineered nanomaterials create novel risks that
require new forms of toxicity evaluation, but risk assessment is still in its infancy. There are no internationally-accepted scientific standards governing lab
research or the introduction of nanomaterials in commercial products.

An October 2020 report by Friends of the Earth (FOE) provides an excellent, in-depth introduction to RNAi pesticide technologies, theirrisks and concerns. FOE’s major findings:• RNAi pesticides must be regulated as a form of genetic engineering,as they can result in genetic changes in exposed organisms as well as
altered traits that can be passed down to offspring.
• Country-level regulatory authorities have failed to acknowledge
RNAi pesticides as a form of genetic engineering and have therefore
failed to enact proper assessments or precautions for this novel application of the technology.
• Given the potential risks and major gaps in knowledge surrounding RNAi
pesticides, it is imperative that civil society, farmers, and concerned scientists push for strong regulations before this technology is commercialized.
Source: Friends of the Earth (FOE), Gene-Silencing Pesticides: Risks and Concerns, October 2020, https://foe.org/resources/gene-silencing-pesticides-risks-and-concerns/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 36 |
Who’s Running Interference? Sampling of Start-ups focusing on RNAibased Pesticide Sprays
Company (Headquarters)
Greenlight (USA)RNAissance (USA)AgroSpheres (USA)

DevGen (Belgium), now owned
by Syngenta
Viaqua Therapeutics (Israel)

R&D focus & partners
RNAi pioneer focusing on pharma and agriculture. Has conducted over 20
field trials of dsRNA targeting Colorado Potato Beetle in U.S. 164
Using genetically engineered microorganisms to make dsRNA; conducting
research on nanoparticle delivery technology; R&D focus on injection ofRNAi compounds in fruit and nut trees.
Partners with Adama, subsidiary of Syngenta on RNAi-based insecticide targeting the Diamondback Moth (DBM); conducts research on nanoparticle
delivery technology w/ RNAissance.
Acquired by Syngenta for US$523 m in 2012; RNAi for pest control.
Aquaculture; RNA-based RNAi for viral control in shrimp; partners w/ Nutreco and Thai Union Group PCL.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 37 |
Notes

Adama is now part of Syngenta Group; in 2020, Syngenta
and Adama reported separately.
See Syngenta Financial Report 2020, p. 34:
https://www.syngenta.com/sites/syngenta/files/bond-investor-information/financial-results/Syngenta-AG-2020-Financial-Report.pdf; and Adama Q4 & FY 2020 Review, p. 9:
https://investors.adama.com/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/
ADAMA_External_Q4_FY_2020_LTD_Presentation.pdf.
2 See Bayer Annual Report 2020, p. 83:
https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/files/2021-02/Bayer-Annual-Report-2020.pdf. Bayer reports its agrochemical
segments separately. Our sales figure excludes agchem usedon golf courses. See “Sales by Strategic Business Entity,” p.
83. Our figure includes herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.
3 See BASF Online Report 2020, Segment Profile:https://report.basf.com/2020/en/managements-report/segments/agricultural-solutions/segment-profile.html. Our
figure includes insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and seedtreatment.
4 See Corteva News Release, 03 February 2021, 4Q/Full Year 2020
Results, p. 4:
https://www.corteva.com/content/dam/dpagco/corteva/global/corporate/files/press-releases/02.03.2021_4QFY_2020_Earnings_News_Release_Graphic_Version_Final.pdf .
5 See UPL News Release, “UPL Ltd Q4FY21 net rises 72% to Rs.
1,065cr.; full year profit jumps 62% to Rs 2,872 cr.,” 12 May
2021.
https://www.upl-ltd.com/financial_result_and_report_pdfs/v9RuJaxx7cAxNVh3cuwJPwLKCNbTSyflOxx8qnXN/Q4FY2021-Press-Release.pdf. Total UPL revenue in
US dollars ($5,200 million) confirmed by UPL Investor Relations via personal email from Radhika Arora, 25 May 2021
for FY 2020-2021, ending 31 March 2021. For FY2021, UPL’s
seed revenue (Advanta) was around $310 million; total UPL
Agrochem revenues = $4,890 million (rounded to $4,900
million).
6 See FMC 2020 Annual Report and Form10-K, p. 18: https://s21.
q4cdn.com/968238644/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/
FMC-2020-Annual-Report_Form-10-K.pdf.
7 Sumitomo Chemical Consolidated Financial Statement,
operating segment is called Health & Crop Sciences and includes some non-agricultural chemicals. FY ended 31 March
2021, p. 16: https://www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp/english/ir/
library/financial_results/files/docs/ar2021_fs.pdf.
8 Nufarm Annual Report 2020, FY ended July 2020, Crop
protection, p. 10: https://cdn.nufarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/19064818/Nufarm-AR2020_Web.pdf.
9 The figure is for 2020 crop protection sales in $US. Confirmed
via personal communication with Daisy Fan, China Crop Protection Industry Association, 17 March 2022: https://www.
rainbowagro.com/news_detail/newsId=111.html .
10 The figure is for 2020 crop protection sales in $US. Confirmed
via personal communication with Daisy Fan, China Crop Protection Industry Association, 17 March 2022: https://www.
rainbowagro.com/news_detail/newsId=111.html .
11 Rebecca Coons, “Agchems expect slight gains in 2021,”
Chemical Week, 03 Jan 2021: https://chemweek.com/CW/
Document/116331/Agchems-expect-slight-gains-in-2021.
The estimate comes from Jonathan Shoham, senior consultant analyst at IHS Markit Agribusiness, formerly Phillips
McDougall.
1

12

13
14

15
16

17

18
19
20

21
22
23

24

25

26
27

Oliver T. Coomes et al., “Farmer seed networks make alimited contribution to agriculture? Four common misconceptions,” Food Policy, Volume 56, October 2015, p. 43:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S03069
1921500086X#ab010 .
Bayer reported € 9,021 million in sales of seeds & traits in 2020;
see Bayer Annual Report 2020, p. 83: https://www.bayer.com/
sites/default/files/2021-02/Bayer-Annual-Report-2020.pdf .
See Corteva Agriscience News Release, Q4/Full Year, “SeedSummary,” 03 February 2021, p. 5: https://www.corteva.
com/content/dam/dpagco/corteva/global/corporate/files/
press-releases/02.03.2021_4QFY_2020_Earnings_News_
Release_Graphic_Version_Final.pdf .
Syngenta AG Financial Report 2020, p. 34: https://www.syngenta.com/sites/syngenta/files/bond-investor-information/
financial-results/Syngenta-AG-2020-Financial-Report.pdf .
BASF reported €1,495 million in sales of seeds & traits in
2020; see BASF Annual Report 2020, p. 100:
https://report.basf.com/2020/en/servicepages/downloads/
files/gby-business-year-basf-basf-ar20.pdf.
Vilmorin is the seed business of Groupe Limagrain. The company’s FY runs 01 July 1 to 30 June. Vilmorin reported €1,477
million in seed sales for the FY 2020-2021. See Vilmorin presentation, “Sales for FY 2020-2021 (on June 30, 2021), August 2, 2021:” https://www.vilmorincie.com/wp-content/
uploads/2021/08/Preesentation-CA-annuel-VCO-2020-2021EN.pdf.
KWS’s FY runs 01 July to 30 June. See KWS Facts and Figures at a
Glance: https://www.kws.com/corp/en/company/at-a-glance/.
DLF Annual Report 2020: https://www.dlf.com/about-dlf/
key-figures-and-annual-report.
Sakata Seeds, Summary of Consolidated Financial Results for theYear Ended May 31, 2021: https://corporate.sakataseed.co.jp/
en/ir/library/shi2630000000cee-att/SAKATA20210714_
summary_of_financial_results_for_the_year_ended_
May_31_2021.pdf ..
Kaneko Seeds, Net sales for FY ended May 21, 2021: http://
www.kanekoseeds.jp/en/financial-information/financial-summary/.
Personal communication with Jonathan Shoham, Senior
Analyst, IHS Markit, July 2021.
Hepeng Jia, “ChemChina and Sinochem will combine theiragriculture assets,” Chemical & Engineering News, 08 January 2020. https://cen.acs.org/food/agriculture/ChemChina-Sinochem-combine-agriculture-assets/98/i2.
Daxue Consulting, “The pesticide market in China underenvironmental regulations and industrial restructuring amid
COVID-19,” 07 December 2020: https://daxueconsulting.
com/pesticide-market-in-china/ .
Jasmine Ng and Shuping Niu, “China Unveils Roadmap
to Ensure Food for 1.4 Billion People,” Bloomberg News, 04
March 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/china-unveils-roadmap-to-ensure-foodfor-1-4-billion-people.
Gordon Orr, “What can we expect in China in 2021?,” McKinsey& Co., 04 Feb 2021: https://www.mckinsey.com/cn/our-insights/our-insights/what-can-we-expect-in-china-in-2021.
Daxue Consulting, “The pesticide market in China underenvironmental regulations and industrial restructuring amid
COVID-19,” 07 December 2020. https://daxueconsulting.
com/pesticide-market-in-china/; see also Adama, Periodic
Report for the Year 2020: https://investors.adama.com/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 38 |
28

29

30

31
32
33
34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

files/doc_financials/2020/q4/Q4_FY_2020_Report_Solutions.pdf.
Annie Shattuck, “Generic, growing, green?: The changing political economy of the global pesticide complex,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, January 2021: DOI:
10.1080/03066150.2020.1839053.
Jing Yang and Martin Mou, “China Approves Merger ofChemical Giants, Creating $150 Billion Company,” Wall Street
Journal, 01 April 2021:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-approves-merger-of-chemical-giants-creating-150 -billion-company-11617257687 .
Sun Chi, “Sinochem and ChemChina merger approved,”
China Daily, 01 April 2021: approved http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202104/01/WS606533bca31024ad0bab2fde.
html.
Sinochem Holdings, “Sinochem Holdings Releases Its
Brand Logo,” 08 April 2021: http://www.sinochem.com/
newen/s/17585-50448-148378.html .
Anon., “SinoChem Group Profile,” Marketline, 06 Dec
2020: https://marketline.com/ .
Anon., “SinoChem Group Profile,”Marketline, 06 Dec
2020: https://marketline.com/ .
Syngenta Group, “Syngenta Group China to build worldclass innovation center in Nanjing,” 02 Feb 2021: https://www.syngentagroup.com/en/media/syngenta-news/
year/2021/syngenta-group-china-build-world-class-innovation-center-nanjing. “Biologicals” refer to naturally occurring substances, products derived from fermentation, microbes and pheromones, predatory insects and mites, fungiand nematodes.
Hepeng Jia, “ChemChina and Sinochem will combine theiragriculture assets,” Chemical & Engineering News, 08 January 2020: https://cen.acs.org/food/agriculture/ChemChina-Sinochem-combine-agriculture-assets/98/i2.
Jacky Wong, “More Seed Capital for Syngenta Could Help
Feed China,” Wall Street Journal, 13 July 2021: https://www.
wsj.com/articles/more-seed-capital-for-syngenta-couldhelp-feed-china-11626170421 .
Narayanan Somasundaram, “Syngenta files for year’s biggest
IPO with $10bn Shanghai listing,” Nikkei Asia, 03 July 2021:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/IPO/Syngentafiles-for-year-s-biggest-IPO-with-10bn-Shanghai-listing2 .
Reuters Staff, “Shanghai suspends Syngenta IPO in mass
listings freeze,” Reuters, 11 Oct 2021: https://www.reuters.
com/article/syngenta-ipo/shanghai-suspends-syngentaipo-in-mass-listings-freeze-blames-outdated-info-idUSKBN2H10EH .
Annie Shattuck, “Generic, growing, green?: The changing political economy of the global pesticide complex,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, January 2021. DOI:
10.1080/03066150.2020.1839053.
Annie Shattuck, “Generic, growing, green?: The changing
political economy of the global pesticide complex,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, Jan 2021: https://doi.org/10.1080/0306
6150.2020.1839053 . Shattuck cites studies by agribusinessconsultancy Phillip McDougall (now IHS Markit).
Phillips McDougall, “The Cost of New Agrochemical Product Discovery, Development and Registration in 1995, 2000,
2005-8 and 2010-2014. R&D expenditure in 2014 and expectations for 2019,” March 2016: https://croplife.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Cost-of-CP-report-FINAL.pdf .
Jennifer Clapp, “Explaining Growing Glyphosate Use:
The Political Economy of Herbicide-Dependent Agricul-

43
44

45

46

47

48
49
50

51

52

53

54

55
56

57

ture,” Global Environmental Change, March 2021: https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102239 .
Jennifer Clapp. “The problem with growing corporate concentration and power in the global food system,” Nature Food 2,
404–408 (2021): https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00297-7 .
Jennifer Clapp, “Explaining Growing Glyphosate Use: The
Political Economy of Herbicide-Dependent Agriculture,”
Global Environmental Change, Volume 67, 2021: https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102239 .
Heartland Health Research Alliance, Take Home Messages in“Organic Farming Lessens Reliance on Pesticides and Promotes Public
Health by Lowering Dietary Risks,” 07 July 2021: https://hh-ra.
org/2021/07/07/take-home-messages-hhra-new-paper/.
Gil Gullickson, New tech coming in seed traits, Successful
Farming, 30 November 2020:
https://www.agriculture.com/crops/corn/new-tech-coming-in-seed-traits.
Gil Gullickson, New tech coming in seed traits, Successful
Farming, 30 November 2020:
https://www.agriculture.com/crops/corn/new-tech-coming-in-seed-traits.
Andrea Klosterman Harris, “Post-Patent Report,” Agribusiness
Global, 01 September 2009: https://www.agribusinessglobal.com/agrochemicals/post-patent-report-2/.
Andrea Klosterman Harris, “Post-Patent Report,” Agribusiness
Global, 01 September 2009: https://www.agribusinessglobal.com/agrochemicals/post-patent-report-2/.
Marion Werner, Christian Berndt and Becky Mansfield,“The Glyphosate Assemblage: Herbicides, Uneven Development, and Chemical Geographies of Ubiquity,” Annals of
the American Association of Geographers, 2021: https://doi.org/10.
1080/24694452.2021.1898322 .
Annie Shattuck, “Generic, growing, green?: The changing
political economy of the global pesticide complex,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, January 2021: https://doi.org/10.1080/0
3066150.2020.1839053 .
UPL Ltd. Capital Markets Day Presentation, 12 May 2021, p.
27. https://www.upl-ltd.com/financial_result_and_report_
pdfs/gJhLXpQ61k5IcsAaKLpO4vrbcZFhpdx6cnNr0B5h/
FY2021_CMD-Presentation.pdf .
Duane Dickson, Shay Eliaz, and Aijaz Hussain, “The futureof agrochemicals,” Deloitte, 2019: https://www2.deloitte.
com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/energy-resources/us-eri-future-of-agrochemicals.pdf.
The multinational agrochem giants operate in all three sectors: 1) proprietary; 2) proprietary off-patent sector; 3) generics. But the “proprietary off-patent sector” – that is, the reformulation of existing active ingredients – has been increasingly
important. The term “profitable agrochemicals cocktail”
comes from Duane Dickson, Shay Eliaz, and Aijaz Hussain,“The future of agrochemicals,” Deloitte, 2019: https://www2.
deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/energy-resources/us-eri-future-of-agrochemicals.pdf.
Andrea Klosterman Harris“ Post-Patent Report,” Agribusiness
Global, 01 September 2009: https://www.agribusinessglobal.com/agrochemicals/post-patent-report-2/.
David Frabotta, “Bigger Than COVID-19: Three Things Affecting Global Agriculture,” Agribusiness Global 17 November:
2020: https://www.agribusinessglobal.com/markets/bigger-than-covid-19-three-things-affecting-global-agriculture/.
Annie Shattuck, “Generic, growing, green?: The changing
political economy of the global pesticide complex,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, January 2021: https://doi.org/10.1080/0
3066150.2020.1839053 .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 39 |
58 Stacy Malkan, “Glyphosate Fact Sheet: Cancer and Other
Health Concerns,” U.S. Right to Know, 10 June 2021: https://
usrtk.org/pesticides/glyphosate-health-concerns/ .
59 Tim Loh and Jef Feeley, “Bayer’s Roundup Costs Could Top$16 Billion as Provisions Mount,” Bloomberg, 29 July 2021:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-29/
bayer-to-set-aside-4-5-billion-for-potential-roundup-claims.
60 Sara Randazzo and Ruth Bender, “Bayer to Rethink Roundup
Formula for U.S. Consumers,” Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2021:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-rejects-bayer-proposal-to-resolve-future-roundup-cases-11622057583.
61 For a full list of glyphosate bans and restrictions, see Baum
Hedlund Law, “Where is Glyphosate Banned?,” updated
August 2021: https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/toxictort-law/monsanto-roundup-lawsuit/where-is-glyphosatebanned-/ .
62 The website of the “Data Working Group” of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM) for Relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security
provides more in-depth discussion of these issues: https://www.csm4cfs.org/tag/data/ .
63 Glenn Davis Stone, “Surveillance agriculture and peasantautonomy,” Journal of Agrarian Change, 2022; 1–24: https://doi.
org/10.1111/joac.12470.
64 Lutz Goedde, Joshua Katz, Alexandre Ménard and Julien Revellat, “Agriculture’s connected future: How technology can yield new growth,” McKinsey & Co., 9 Oct
2020: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/
our-insights/agricultures-connected-future-how-technology-can-yield-new-growth .
65 Studies looking at levels of adoption of precision agriculture
technologies have largely viewed the issue through the lensof farm profitability (rather than environmental impact, forexample). They acknowledge that input-use could increase“if a need was indicated by mapping,” as per David Schimmelpfennig, “Farm Profits and Adoption of Precision Agriculture,” USDA Economic Research Report # 217, October
2016, p. 13: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/80326/err-217.pdf?v=0 . Schimmelpfennig’s study examined corn farms in the US (94% of which were growing
GMO corn) and concluded that very large farms were more
likely to adopt precision agriculture technologies, with an
overall impact on profitability that was “positive, but small.”66 Mao Feng quoted in Dominique Patton, “Syngenta looks to
China’s farmers for growth ahead of mega-IPO,” Reuters, 04
July 2021: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-syngenta-focus-idCAKCN2EA0M6. Syngenta’s MAP sells seeds
and agrochemicals and runs training centers across China
as well as ~900 demonstration farms that provide location-specific recommendations for increasing yields. On the
MAP platform, growers receive “free” land management,
and, in return, buy Syngenta’s products or “others recommended by its agronomists.”
67 For a clear overview of digital ag business models, with afocus on developing countries, see Regina Birner, Thomas Daum and Carl Pray, “Who drives the digital revolution
in agriculture? A review of supply-side trends, players andchallenges,” Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 2021, p. 19:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/aepp.13145 .
68 Ryan Humpert, “Trusted Data Advisor: 3 Digital Collaboration
Trends That Are Changing the Way Ag Retailers Do Business,”
CropLife, 21 August 2020: https://www.croplife.com/precision/trusted-data-advisor-3-digital-collaboration-trends-thatare-changing-the-way-ag-retailers-do-business/ .

69 See, as one example, a discussion of the pros and cons of
paying for a drone-based, field-scouting service on a US cornfield: Farm Progress website (owned by informa), “Putting avalue on aerial scouting,” 25 March 2020: https://www.
farmprogress.com/scouting/putting-value-aerial-scouting.
70 Omnivore Venture Capital envisions a “farm of one” in its
report, “The Future of Indian Agriculture and Food Systems:
Vision 2030:” https://www.omnivore.vc/vision-2030/ .
71 In 2020, Bayer’s partnership with Tillable (a company thatfinds arable land available for rent – kind of an Airbnb forcrops – which offers its own digital farm management tools)
ended abruptly when farmers began suspecting that data theyshared on Bayer/Climate Corporation’s FieldView platform
had been compromised. The legal ambiguities and potential
peril for farmers are clearly presented by ag-focused attorney
Todd Janzen, “The FieldView-Tillable Breakup: What Went
Wrong?,” Successful Farming, 19 February 2020: “…it is not clear[to users] who is behind the FieldView platform. Climate[Corporation]’s end user license agreement (EULA) and privacy statement are both filled with references to The Climate
Corporation, FieldView, Affiliates, Bayer Group, third parties,
and Platform Partners. Sharing data with the FieldView platform begins with an ambiguity about who, exactly, FieldView
is. Legally, FieldView is a Bayer product, just like a Chevrolet
is made by General Motors. Climate and Monsanto are divisions of Bayer…users, too, were not sure where Tillable fit
into the relationship with Climate. Was it owned by Bayer,
controlled by Bayer, or backed by similar venture capital investors? Perhaps this is one reason that Stern, Climate’s CEO,
had to clarify in Climate’s renunciation press release that Tillable was only a ‘Platform Partner,’ not something more.”
Janzen’s full article is available on the Internet: https://www.
agriculture.com/news/technology/the-fieldview-tillablebreakup-what-went-wrong. ClimateView’s [i.e., Bayer’s]
painful breakup with Tillable, announced, without irony, on
Valentine’s Day 2020, is available on the Internet: https://d107i52gp9xyle.cloudfront.net/press-releases/fieldview-terminates-platform-partner-agreement-with-tillable/ .
72 Ibid.
73 Several studies and/or surveys focus on concerns that farmers have about sharing data. See, for example, Jody L. Ferris,“Data Privacy and Protection in the Agriculture Industry: Is
Federal Regulation Necessary?” The Minnesota Journal of Law,
Science & Technology, Vol.18, Issue 1, 2017, pp. 309-342, especially pp. 315-317: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mjlst/
vol18/iss1/6 .
74 Anon., “BlockApps Launches Agribusiness Blockchain Network ‘TraceHarvest’ Following Success with Bayer,” Seed
World, 18 November 2020: https://seedworld.com/blockapps-launches-agribusiness-blockchain-network-traceharvest-following-success-with-bayer/ .
75 Anon., “The Use of Blockchain in Trademark and Brand Protection,” Caldwell Intellectual Property Law, 22 June 2021:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-use-of-blockchain-in-trademark-and-1929008/#_edn1 .
76 In March 2021, TraceHarvest Network held a virtual informational meeting about its blockchain technology with presentations by Bushel (digital platform for grain growers andbuyers), Roger (digital tools for bulk freight shipping) and
Bayer Crop Science. A recording of the meeting is available
on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpAJlPciRs&t=787s. Stan Dotson’s presentation begins at 37:10(viewed 12 August 2021).
77 Ibid.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 40 |
78 For example, business software giant Oracle refers to blockchain as “a single source of truth” here: https://www.oracle.com/ca-en/blockchain/what-is-blockchain/ .
79 Mike Orcutt, “Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are
now getting hacked,” MIT Technology Review, 19 Feb 2019:https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/02/19/239592/
once-hailed-as-unhackable-blockchains-are-now-gettinghacked/.
80 TraceHarvest FAQs: https://blockapps.net/traceharvest/#faq (viewed 29 July 2021).
81 https://cdn.farmjournal.com/2020-12/FarmJournal-ACAM2020Report-CarbonMarkets_0.pdf .
82 See an annotated list of carbon credit companies in Mike
Abram, “Companies offering carbon-based payments toarable farmers,” Farmers Weekly, 30 June 2021: https://regenfarming.news/articles/1126-companies-offering-carbon-based-payments-to-arable-farmers. See also, Farm Journal 2020 Report, pp. 14-15: http://digitaledition.qwinc.com/
publication/?m=63835&i=687549&p=14&ver=html5 .
83 Ecosystem Services Market Consortium news release, “Ecosystem Services Market Consortium Expands with Eight
New Members,” 04 June 2019: https://www.prnewswire.
com/news-releases/ecosystem-services-market-consortium-expands-with-eight-new-members-300861561.html.
84 BlockApps webinar, “Seed to Silo Blockchain Traceability - with Bayer Crop Science (FULL 45M WEBINAR),” 10
December 2020, at 25:22: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=O5Owa4doZ1I&t=1647s.
85 Jennifer Clapp, “The problem with growing corporate concentration and power in the global food system. Nature Food
2, 404–408 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-02100297-7 .
86 Jon Cohen, “To feed its 1.4 billion, China bets big on genome editing of crops,” Science, 29 July 2019: https://www.
sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/feed-its-14-billion-chinabets-big-genome-editing-crops
87 Anonymous, “Company claims first commercial gene-edited crop wasn’t gene-edited after all,” GM Watch, 21 September 2020: https://www.gmwatch.org/en/106-news/
latest-news/19535.
88 Alejo Menchaca, “Sustainable Food Production: The Contribution of Genome Editing in Livestock,” Sustainability(MDPI) 2021, 13, 6788: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126788
89 Megan Molteni, “Crispr Can Help Solve Our Looming Food
Crisis—Here’s How,” Wired, 08 Aug 2019: https://www.
wired.com/story/gene-editing-food-climate-change/ .
90 Laura Geggel, “Can Gene Editing Save the World’s Chocolate?,” National Geographic, 5 Jan 2018: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-gene-editing-save-the-worldschocolate/ .
91 Innovature is a joint project of the Biotechnology Innovation
Organization (BIO) and the American Seed Trade Association(ASTA). See Innovature, “Gene Editing Could Protect Your
Favorite Foods,” 28 October 2020: https://innovature.com/
article/gene-editing-could-protect-your-favorite-foods .
92 Mars, position statement on Gene Editing, no date: https://www.mars.com/about/policies-and-practices/gene-editing.
93 Carolyn Wilke, “Gene-Edited Soybean Oil Makes Restaurant Debut,” The Scientist, 13 Mar 2019: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/gene-edited-soybean-oil-makesrestaurant-debut-65590 .
94 CBAN, Product Profile: GM Waxy Corn, Corteva, updated 12
April 2021: https://cban.ca/wp-content/uploads/GM-WaxyCorn-Corteva-product-profile-CBAN.pdf .

95 Anon., “‘CRISPR Tomatoes’ approved in Japan,” Testbiotech, 03 February 2021: https://www.testbiotech.org/en/
news/crispr-tomatoes-approved-japan .
96 For example, University of Minnesota press release, “Calyxt
Receives EU Patent on Use of CRISPR/Cas9 for Genome
Editing in Plants,” 17 December 2018: https://research.
umn.edu/units/techcomm/news/calyxt-receives-eu-patent-use-crisprcas9-genome-editing-plants .
97 K. Egelie, G. Graff, S. Strand and B. Johansen, “The emerging patent landscape of CRISPR–Cas gene editing technology,” Nature Biotechnology, 34, 2016, pp. 1025–1031: https://doi.
org/10.1038/nbt.3692 .
98 According to ERS, the global patent portfolio is known as
CVC; CVC stands for University of California, University of
Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier. The acronym describes the owners of what are commonly referred to as the
UC Berkeley CRISPR patents. See ERS Genomics website:
https://www.ersgenomics.com/faq/ .
99 See founders page on Pairwise’s website:: https://pairwise.
com/about-us/founders/ .
100 Jon Cohen, “The latest round in the CRISPR patent battle has an apparent victor, but the fight continues,” Science, 11 September 2020: https://www.sciencemag.org/
news/2020/09/latest-round-crispr-patent-battle-has-apparent-victor-fight-continues. See also, Fiona Mischel, “WhoOwns CRISPR in 2021? It’s Even More Complicated Than
You Think,” Synbiobeta, 27 April 2021: https://www.synbiobeta.com/read/who-owns-crispr-in-2021-its-even-morecomplicated-than-you-think .
101 Elena Shao and Yash Pershad, “CRISPR Co-Inventor Jennifer Doudna Talks Ethics and Biological Frontiers,” Stanford– McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, 25 January
2019: https://ethicsinsociety.stanford.edu/buzz-blog/crispr-co-inventor-jennifer-doudna-talks-ethics-and-biological-frontiers .
102 Jon Cohen, “CRISPR, the revolutionary genetic ‘scissors,’
honored by Chemistry Nobel,” Science, 07 October 2020:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/crispr-revolutionary-genetic-scissors-honored-chemistry-nobel.
103 Maywa Montenegro de Wit, “Democratizing CRISPR? Stories,
practices, and politics of science and governance on the agricultural gene editing frontier,” Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 20 Feb 2020: https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.405.
104 IPStudies’ patent analytics are proprietary and pricey, but asummary is available here: https://www.ipstudies.ch/crispr-patent-analytics/. A patent family is a collection of patentapplications covering the same or similar technical content.
105 Christoph Then, Andreas Bauer-Panskus und Ruth Tippe,“New GE and food plants: The disruptive impact of patents
on breeders, food production and society,” Testbiotech,
June 2021: https://www.testbiotech.org/sites/default/files/
Patents_on%20new%20GE.pdf .
106 Christoph Then, Andreas Bauer-Panskus und Ruth Tippe,“New GE and food plants: The disruptive impact of patents
on breeders, food production and society,” Testbiotech,
June 2021: https://www.testbiotech.org/sites/default/files/
Patents_on%20new%20GE.pdf .
107 Christoph Then, Andreas Bauer-Panskus und Ruth Tippe,“New GE and food plants: The disruptive impact of patents
on breeders, food production and society,” Testbiotech,
June 2021: https://www.testbiotech.org/sites/default/files/
Patents_on%20new%20GE.pdf .
108 Anon., “Increasing number of patents on food plants and
New GE,” TestBiotech, 25 June 2021: https://www.testbio-

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 41 |
tech.org/en/news/increasing-number-patents-food-plantsand-new-ge .
109 Corteva, “How is a plant developed with CRISPR genome
editing different from a GMO (genetically modified organism)?,” CRISPR FAQs: https://crispr.corteva.com/faqs-crispr-cas-corteva-agriscience/ .
110 Corteva, “What is CRISPR?,” CRISPR FAQs: https://crispr.
corteva.com/faqs-crispr-cas-corteva-agriscience/ .
111 The estimate comes from Dun & Bradstreet, derived frommodelling: https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.agbiome_inc.1002a588c9bf60799359dc33ac041352.
html#company-info .
112 Frank Vinluan, “New partnerships driving more growthfor emerging Triangle agtech firm Agbiome,” NC Biotech Center, 06 April 2021: https://www.wraltechwire.
com/2021/04/06/new-partnerships-driving-more-growthfor-emerging-triangle-agtech-firm-agbiome/ .
113 Inari news release, “Inari Raises Over $200 Million to Unlock the Full Potential of Seed,” 12 May 2021: https://www.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/inari-raises-over-200-million-to-unlock-the-full-potential-of-seed-301289170.html.
See also, Chris Janiec, “Inari adds $208m for seed technology expansion” AgriInvestor, 20 May 2021: https://www.agriinvestor.com/inari-adds-208m-for-seed-technology-expansion/ .
114 See Inari news releases: https://inari.com/news .
115 See https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/cibus .
116 See Cibus news releases: https://www.cibus.com/press-releases.php .
117 Calyxt news release, “Calyxt Reports Fourth Quarter andFull Year 2020 Financial Results, Fiscal Year 2020 Financial
Highlights,” 04 March 2021: https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_9f3e63a87900a44184f0fc7b540483b8/calyxt/
news/2021-03-04_Calyxt_Reports_Fourth_Quarter_and_
Full_Year_2020_112.pdf .
118 Ned Pagliarulo, “Caribou raises $304M in one of gene editing’s most lucrative IPOs,” Biopharmadive: https://www.
biopharmadive.com/news/caribou-ipo-crispr-gene-editing/603855/. Sales/revenue figure not available. The total
assets of Caribou Biosciences in 2020 amounted to ~36
million USD. The SEC filings of Caribou Biosciences states,“We have incurred significant net operating losses since our
inception and anticipate that we will incur continued losses
for the foreseeable future”: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001619856/000119312521206262/d145328ds1.
htm#fin145328_3 .
119 Daniel Grushkin, “DuPont in CRISPR-Cas patent land grab,”
Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 34, Number 1, January 2016, p. 13:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt0116-13.pdf?origin=ppub. See Caribou news release for joint research on off-target
effects, “Caribou Biosciences and DuPont Pioneer Develop
New Method to Comprehensively Map the Off-Target Activity of CRISPR-Cas9 Across Entire Genomes,” 01 May 2017:https://investor.cariboubio.com/news-releases/news-release-details/caribou-biosciences-and-dupont-pioneer-develop-new-method .
120 See ERS Genomics news release: https://www.ersgenomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ers-3-2-21.pdf .
121 Arcadia Biosciences 2020 Annual Report, Form 10-K, p. 45:
https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/a/NASDAQ_RKDA_2020.pdf. For businessoverview, see pp. 2-3.

122 Arcadia Biosciences 2020 Annual Report, Form 10-K, p. 10:https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/a/NASDAQ_RKDA_2020.pdf .
123 Anonymous, “Pairwise announces closing of $90M Series B
funding round,” SeedWorld, 04 February 2021: https://seedworld.com/pairwise-announces-closing-of-90m-series-bfunding-round/ .
124 The revenue estimate comes from Dun & Bradstreet, derived from modelling, no date; see https://www.dnb.com/
business-directory/company-profiles.pairwise_plants_services_inc.a9b1bcea075866b3a785caccbf80bc21.html#company-info (subscription required).
125 “Tropic Biosciences raises $10m Series A for Tropical CRISPR
Tech,” Agropages, 15 June 2018: http://news.agropages.com/
News/NewsDetail---26627.htm. See also, Tropic Biosciences news release, “Tropic Biosciences raises $28.5 million Series B financing to transform the massive tropical agricultureindustry” 04 June 2020: https://www.tropicbioscience.
com/copy-of-round-a .
126 A Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) is one thathas no commercial operations of its own, but acquires other companies in order to raise equity for IPOs. See Amrith
Ramkumar, “Plant-Tech Firm Benson Hill Going Public in$2 Billion SPAC Merger”, Wall Street Journal, 09 May 2021:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/plant-tech-firm-benson-hillgoing-public-in-2-billion-spac-merger-11620601200 .
127 Benson Hill Biosystems news release, “Benson Hill Raises$150 Million In Series D Funding Round to Accelerate thePace of Food Innovation on a Global Scale,” 29 October
2020: https://bensonhill.com/2020/10/29/benson-hill-raises-150-million-in-series-d-funding-round-to-accelerate-thepace-of-food-innovation-on-a-global-scale/. See all equity
raised in 11 funding rounds on Crunchbase: https://www.
crunchbase.com/organization/benson-hill-biosystems/
company_financials .
128 Benson Hill news release, “Benson Hill Announces Second
Quarter 2021 Financial Results,” 10 August 2021: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/benson-hill-announces-second-quarter-2021-financial-results-301351744.
html .
129 Precision announced in January 2021 that it intends to spinout Elo Life Systems; see Precision Biosciences annual report, Form 10-K, 2020, p. 2: https://investor.precisionbiosciences.com/static-files/ba8ea361-bc37-4db9-9611048a593cdd75 .
130 See Elo Life website: https://elolife.ag/pipeline/#; see also
parent company annual report, Form 10-K, 2020: https://investor.precisionbiosciences.com/static-files/a0d6ba14a8ae-4b9c-82f3-877975e044e6 .
131 “Collaborative projects” with BASF, Bayer and DuPont Pioneer (Corteva) are mentioned in Precision Biosciences’annual report, without elaboration. See Form 10-K, 2020, p.
22: https://investor.precisionbiosciences.com/static-files/
a0d6ba14-a8ae-4b9c-82f3-877975e044e6 .
132 See Sanatech Seed news release, “Gene-edited Tomato “Sicilian Rouge High GABA” Seedling Distribution and Commercial Plan,” 27 April 2021: https://sanatech-seed.com/
en/210427-2/ .
133 See Yield10 Bioscience web site, “CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing to Increase Crops Yields,” no date: https://www.yield10bio.com/crispr-gene-editing .
134 Yield10 Bioscience annual report, Form 10-K: https://ir.yield10bio.com/static-files/ec20c12d-7471-40fe-b8c4-c4103d8c43c8 , p. F-4.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 42 |
135 Yield10 Bioscience annual report, Form 10-K: https://ir.yield10bio.com/static-files/ec20c12d-7471-40fe-b8c4-c4103d8c43c8 , pp. 8-9.
136 Yield10 Bioscience annual report, Form 10-K: https://ir.yield10bio.com/static-files/ec20c12d-7471-40fe-b8c4-c4103d8c43c8 , p. 21.
137 D.R. Gordon, G. Jaffe, M. Doane et al., “Responsible governance of gene editing in agriculture and the environment,”
Nature Biotechnology, 11 Aug 2021: https://www.nature.com/
articles/s41587-021-01023-1.
138 Steve Davies, “Lawsuit Challenges Trump-Era Overhaul of
USDA’s Biotech Regulation,” Agri-Pulse, 26 July 2021: https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/16221-lawsuit-challengestrump-rule-on-biotech-plants .
139 Anonymous, “Derailing EU rules on new GMOs,” Corporate Europe Observatory, 29 March 2021: https://corporateeurope.org/en/2021/03/derailing-eu-rules-new-gmos .
140 Claire Robinson, “Researchers call for greater awarenessof unintended consequences of CRISPR gene editing,”
GM Watch, 13 April 2021: https://www.gmwatch.org/en/
news/latest-news/19756-researchers-call-for-greater-awareness-of-unintended-consequences-of-crispr-gene-editing.
141 Janet Cotter, Katharina Kawall, Christoph Then, New genetic engineering technologies, Risk Assessment of Genetically Engineered
Organisms in the EU and Switzerland, January 2020: https://www.testbiotech.org/sites/default/files/RAGES_report-%20
new%20genetic%20engineering%20techniques.pdf .
142 Janet Cotter and Dana Perls, “Genome Editing in Food andFarming: Risks and Unexpected Consequences,” updated
and published by Canadian Biotechnology Action Group,
Logos Environmental and Friends of the Earth, June 2020:
https://cban.ca/wp-content/uploads/Genome-Editing-Report-2020.pdf .
143 Matthew Bramletta, Geert Plaetincka, Peter Maienfisch,
RNA-Based Biocontrols—A New Paradigm in Crop Protection, Engineering, Volume 6, Issue 5, May 2020, Pages 522527. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2019.09.008.
144 Friends of the Earth (FOE), Gene-Silencing Pesticides: Risks
and Concerns, October 2020. https://foe.org/resources/
gene-silencing-pesticides-risks-and-concerns/ .
145 Greenlight Biosciences, n. d.: https://www.greenlightbiosciences.com/in-the-pipeline-colorado-potato-beetle/ ..
146 Andrew Fire and Craig Mello first published their discovery of the RNAi mechanism in 1998 and received the Nobel
Prize for this discovery in 2006. https://www.nobelprize.
org/prizes/medicine/2006/press-release/ .
147 Leah Shaffner, “Inner Workings: RNA-based pesticides
aim to get around resistance problems,” PNAS, December 29, 2020. vol. 117 no. 5. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/52/32823 .
148 Jim Lane, “Biobased smart bombs for pests: two new strategic investments in biopesticides from TechAccel,” Biofuels
Digest, Feb 6, 2019. https://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2019/02/06/biobased-smart-bombs-for-pests-two-newstrategic-investments-in-biopesticides-from-techaccel/.
149 For example, GM papaya uses RNAi that defends against
the ringspot virus; potatoes and apples that are engineered
not to brown because RNAi is used to silence the gene forbrowning.

150 Bayer’s third generation “SmartStax” will be loaded withmultiple engineered traits, including RNAi and Bt toxins.
Bayer News Release, “Bayer’s Third Generation Corn Rootworm Trait Gains Final Approval; SmartStax® PRO Technology to Launch in US in 2022,” January 21, 2021: https://www.bayer.com/en/us/smartstaxr-pro-technology-launch.
151 Eric L. Patterson, Christopher Saski, Anita Küpper, Roland
Beffa, and Todd A. Gaines, “Omics Potential in Herbicide-Resistant Weed Management,” Plants (Basel), December 2019. 10.3390/plants8120607. See also: Friends ofthe Earth (FOE), Gene-Silencing Pesticides: Risks and Concerns, October 2020. https://foe.org/resources/gene-silencing-pesticides-risks-and-concerns/ .
152 Estonian Research Council, “Breakthrough in plant protection: RNAi pesticides affect only one pest species,” 12 April
2021: https://phys.org/news/2021-04-breakthrough-rnaipesticides-affect-pest.html.
153 Anon., “Debugging. A new approach,” The Economist,
Vol. 439, Iss. 9246, 22 May 2021, pp. 71-72.
154 Summary of Discussions From the 2019 OECD Conference
on RNAi Based Pesticides, Frontiers in Plant Science, 29 May
2020: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00740.
155 Friends of the Earth (FOE), “Gene-Silencing Pesticides: Risks
and Concerns,” October 2020. https://foe.org/resources/
gene-silencing-pesticides-risks-and-concerns/ .
156 Friends of the Earth (FOE), “Gene-Silencing Pesticides: Risks
and Concerns,” October 2020. https://foe.org/resources/
gene-silencing-pesticides-risks-and-concerns/ .
157 See, for example, Jack Heinemann, “Should dsRNA treatments applied in outdoor environments be regulated?” Environment International, 132, 104856: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
envint.2019.05.050 .
158 Antonio Regalado, “The Next Great GMO Debate,” Technology Review, 11 August 2015: https://www.technologyreview.
com/2015/08/11/166550/the-next-great-gmo-debate/ .
159 Friends of the Earth (FOE), “Gene-Silencing Pesticides: Risks
and Concerns,” October 2020. https://foe.org/resources/
gene-silencing-pesticides-risks-and-concerns/ .
160 Leah Shaffner, “Inner Workings: RNA-based pesticides
aim to get around resistance problems,” PNAS, 29 December 2020, vol. 117 no. 5: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/52/32823 .
161 Shuo Yan, Binyuan Ren, Bo Zeng, and Jie Shen, “Improving RNAi efficiency for pest control in crop species,” Biotechniques, May 2020: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC7252490/ .
162 Leah Shaffner, “Inner Workings: RNA-based pesticides
aim to get around resistance problems,” PNAS, 29 December 2020, vol. 117 no. 5: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/52/32823.
163 Shuo Yan, Binyuan Ren, Bo Zeng, and Jie Shen, “Improving RNAi efficiency for pest control in crop species,” Biotechniques, May 2020: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC7252490/ .
164 Greenlight Biosciences, n. d.: https://www.greenlightbiosciences.com/in-the-pipeline-colorado-potato-beetle/ .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Synthetic
fertilizers
Synthetic Fertilizer companies sell inorganic plant nutrients manufactured via
chemical processes. The three main macronutrients used in agriculture are nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K). Nitrogen is the most frequently applied
nutrient, mostly in the form of urea (derived from ammonia produced from petrochemicals via an energy-intensive process), followed by phosphorus in the formof phosphates and potassium in the form of potash.1 The global fertilizer industry
is fragmented; however, it has historically operated in export cartels organized
by fertilizer type (sometimes government-sanctioned and involving state-owned
companies). State ownership / investment in fertilizer production and trade is stillcommon. Many fertilizer companies are expanding offerings to include so-called
specialty fertilizers (e.g., containing micro-nutrients and/or microbe-based formulations) and digital agriculture.
Synthetic Fertilizer Sales of the Leading Companies, 2020
Rank

Company (Headquarters)

Fertilizer Products / Segments

1.

Nutrien2 (Canada)“Retail Crop Nutrients,” Phosphate, Potassium, Nitrogen

2.

Yara3 (Norway)

Nitrogen Fertilizers

3.

The Mosaic Company 4(USA)

Phosphate, Potash

4.

CF Industries Holdings,
Inc. 5 (USA)

5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

ICL Group Ltd.6 (Israel)
PhosAgro7 (Russia)
Sinofert8 (China)
Eurochem9(Switzerland, nominally)
Uralkali10 (Russia)
K+S Group11 (Germany)
Total Top 10
Total Worldwide Synthetic
Fertilizer Sales (est.)12

Sources: ETC Group, company annual reports

Nitrogen (ammonia, granular urea, urea ammonium
nitrate solution [UAN] and ammonium nitrate [AN], NPK
compound fertilizers)
Potash, Phosphate Solutions, Innovative Ag Solutions
Phosphate based products; Nitrogen based products
Potash, nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer

Fertilizer Revenue$US million
9,484
9,423
8,014
4,124
3,769
3,351
3,099

Nitrogen, phosphate, potash and complex fertilizers

2,945

PotashPotash, Fertilizer specialties

2,387
1,940
48,536
127,570

| 44 |
While global market figures for fertilizer tend toward the speculative, a reasonable estimate for the market’s value in 2020 is $128 billion13 – almost threetimes the size of the market for seeds (US$45 billion) and twice as big as themarket for agrochemicals (US$62.4 billion). The top 10 synthetic fertilizer
companies, therefore, would account for about 38% of global synthetic fertilizer sales. But viewed as individual macronutrient production, the level ofconcentration is even higher. For example:• The top seven suppliers of Muriate of Potash (MOP), a potassium fertilizer, account for 84% of global supply.14 Just four countries (Canada, Russia, Belarus, China) produce about 80% of the world’s traded potash.15• China is one of the largest producers of fertilizers in the world, with 31%
global share of urea and 42% of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) capacity.16• Morocco, via state-owned company OCP, is the world’s largest phosphates exporter,17,18 controlling 72% of global phosphate reserves. This
includes the phosphate rock it mines from occupied Western Sahara.
One reason the level of corporate concentration in the global fertilizer industry
is difficult to pin down is that it overlaps with related industries such as mining,shipping and industrial chemical production. The sector has a history of operating within a “corporate sociology of collusion”19 and coordinates productionlevels to match demand to keep prices high, not unlike OPEC’s manipulationof the petroleum market.20 Fertilizer producers are central to their local economies and are often intertwined with national governments, which means thatgeopolitics can play a significant role in trade.21 The government of Norway,
for example, owns more than 40% of Yara (#2);22 Sinofert (#7) is controlled
by Sinochem, which is a Chinese state-owned enterprise;23 the government of
Morocco owns OCP, a major phosphate fertilizer producer and the country’s
largest company;24 and the Eastern European fertilizer manufacturers (PhosAgro, Uralkali and EuroChem) are largely controlled by a cadre of oligarchs.

Trends: chew on thisETC finds that:• Fertilizer prices increased in 2020, with concomitant food priceinflation in 2021.
• Fertilizer companies sharpened their focus on new fertilizer
revenue streams – specifically targeting organic farming, microbe-based products, digital agriculture and alternative ways to
produce ammonia – with acquisitions, mergers and collaborations/joint ventures increasing in these new segments.
• Like other industrial agriculture sectors, fertilizer companies are
cashing in on the climate crisis. Fertilizer giants are going “green”
and “blue”with so-called sustainable ammonia. The production of“green” ammonia involves renewable energy and “blue” ammonia aims to capture production-related greenhouse gases (see box
below.)
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 45 |
Fertilizer prices increased in 2020, with concomitant food priceinflation in 2021.
Covid-19 lockdowns and supply-chain disruptions decreased China’s phosphate production,25 the world’s biggest supplier. After months of decline,
phosphate prices bounced back in the second half of 2020 owing to an increase in crop prices in Brazil and good growing conditions in India, Australia
and North America.26 Similarly, urea prices increased after mid-2020, reflecting higher costs of natural gas feedstocks.27 Potash prices declined owing tooversupply and lower demand from China.28
2021 took a dramatic turn when prices of some synthetic fertilizers rose to
their highest level since the food price crisis of 2008,29 hurting farmers andcausing food prices to skyrocket again.30 Hurricane Ida hit the hub of US
fertilizer production in late August, driving prices up further.31 High prices
for coal led to a rise in the price of urea.32,33 In China, the main feedstockof nitrogen production is coal as opposed to natural gas in other regions.34
To tackle surging raw material costs and to address domestic food security
concerns, China curbed its fertilizer exports in October, followed by Russia
in November.35,36 The biggest buyers of China’s fertilizers – India, Pakistan
and other countries in Southeast Asia – felt the crunch.37,38 Acute shortages
caused long queues,39 protests,40 and even deaths41 in some Indian towns,
and the government announced record subsidies to counteract exorbitant
input costs.42
Fertilizer companies are focusing on new fertilizer segments.
Specifically, organic farming through acquisitions and new technologies, microbe-based products, digital agriculture and alternative methods of ammonia production (for nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing). Acquisitions, mergers
and collaborations are accelerating along with some divestments of traditional fertilizer assets.
The production and use of synthetic N fertilizers account for 2.4% of global
emissions.43 This comprises nitrous oxide emissions released post-soil application, and carbon dioxide emissions from the production process involving
fossil fuel combustion and from transporting these chemicals. After decadesof destroying soil health and polluting the atmosphere and waterways, fertilizer manufacturers are now aiming to demonstrate their contributions to“clean and green” solutions. Table 2 is a partial list of recent ventures into
so-called sustainable ammonias (also see Box A below), digital products andmicrobial fertilizers (some produced via gene-editing).44

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 46 |
Table 2: “Sustainable” acquisitions, mergers or partnerships by synthetic
fertilizer companies in 2020-2021
Company

Selected Fertilizer Company acquisitions, partnerships, divestments and mergers

Yara

Yara landed research and distribution collaborations in Japan on “clean ammonia bunkering;” and“clean ammonia” supply chains; 45, 46 launched HEGRA in Norway, a “green ammonia” company
co-owned by Aker Clean Hydrogen and Statkraft; 47 collaborated with Danish energy giant Ørsted to
produce ammonia in the Netherlands using offshore wind; 48 Yara Marine Technologies acquired Lean
Marine, which aims to lower emissions in shipping; 49 Yara Growth Ventures invested in US carbon
credits startup Boomitra and in venture capital firm SP Venture, focused on agri-food tech startups
across Latin America (BASF, Syngenta and others are also investors); 50, 51 signed MoU with Trafigura, acommodity trading company to develop lower-emissions shipping fuel; 52 signed MoU with Air Liquide,
Borealis, Esso S.A.F., TotalEnergies to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) in France (storage inNorth Sea); 53 acquired Ecolan Oy, Finnish recycled fertilizer producer, its first acquisition in the organic
fertilizer segment; 54 Yara and IBM launched a digital farming platform; 55 Yara invested US$3 million
in Boost Biomes to develop microbial fertilizers; 56 launched the Agoro Carbon Alliance to incentivize
farmers via carbon credits to plant so-called climate-smart crops ; 57 Yara Pilbara (Western Australia) andAustralia’s ENGIE entered a collaboration to build an electric hydrogen plant; 58 sold its 25% share in Qatar Fertiliser Company; 59 sold its Salitre phosphate mining project in Brazil to Eurochem;60 sold its stakein LIFECO (Libyan Norwegian Fertiliser Company) to Libya’s National Oil Corporation.61

Nutrien

Nutrien and Belgian shipping firm EXMAR are collaborating to build a ship powered by low-carbon
ammonia for ammonia transport;62launched a carbon program for farmers, which includes a digitalplatform and access to carbon markets;63 acquired Brazilian agriculture retailer and soybean seed business Tec Agro;64 acquired Brazilian agriculture retailer Agrosema.65

CF Industries, with 10 other companies including Air Liquide, Hyundai, Shell and Toyota, launched
Hydrogen Forward to develop hydrogen technologies in the U. S.;66 signed an MoU with Mitsui & Co.,
CF Industries Inc. to develop blue ammonia projects in the U. S.;67 joined the Hydrogen Council, a global CEO-led
initiative focusing on hydrogen and low-carbon ammonia;68 signed a contract with thyssenkrupp todevelop a 20-megawatt alkaline water electrolysis plant to produce so-called green hydrogen.69
The Mosaic
Company

The Mosaic Company and Sound Agriculture (formerly Asilomar Bio) entered a strategic partnershipto develop and distribute microbe-activating fertilizers for soybean and corn;70 entered into a similar
collaboration with BioConsortia, Inc. to develop and launch nitrogen-fixing microbial products for corn,
wheat and other major non-legume row crops;71 launched collaboration with Agbiome to develop
microbe-based fertilizers.72

ICL

ICL acquired Brazilian specialty fertilizer company Fertiláqua; 73 acquired Compass Minerals’ South American Plant Nutrition Business, another Brazilian specialty fertilizer business;74 signed a 5-year agreementwith Transkhimtrade, a Ukrainian fertilizer distributor, to sell its “Polysulphate” fertilizer (which it claims iscertified organic and increases nitrogen efficiency);75acquired Growers, a U.S. precision ag company.76

PhosAgroFAO and PhosAgro launched the Soil Doctors Programme, establishing regional networks in Africa,
Latin America and the Middle East focused on assessing fertilizer quality and safety; it will also develop
and distribute soil-testing kits to 5,000 farmers in developing countries;77 inked collaboration with Exact
Farming to develop digital ag services in Russia.78

Uralkali

Uralkali, now controlled by Uralchem, signed a cooperation agreement with Moscow-based, high-tech
R&D company Innopraktika to introduce digital ag and other new technologies including microbial
fertilizers; Uralchem became a member of the Association of Economic Cooperation with African
States (AECAS) to access African markets; Uralkali announced support for Action Africa: Thriving Farms,
Thriving Future founded by Yara and backed by the UN World Food Programme aiming to promote
fertilizers, agrochemicals and digital ag capabilities; Uralkali joined the UN’s corporate sustainability
initiative, Global Compact; launched a pilot project to use electricity from renewable energy sources in
its facilities; Uralchem’s subsidiary Digital Agro, Agrosignal and Cognitive Pilot (an autonomous driving
JV) entered a strategic partnership to accelerate digital ag in Russian farming.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 47 |
Like companies in other industrial ag sectors, fertilizer companies
are cashing in on the climate crisis by going “green” – and “blue” –focusing on “sustainable” ammonia.
Needing to burnish its Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance(ESG) reputation,79 the energy-guzzling and GHG-belching industry is now
scrambling to stay profitable, devising ways to monetize the climate crisisby selling “blue” and “green” ammonia (see Box A below), especially to theshipping industry.80 They are also introducing digital platforms that tout
more efficient fertilizer-use,81 manufacturing organic or bio-stimulant fertilizers, and trading in carbon credits.

Many shades of ammonia: but all green(washing) The manufacture of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers commonly involves the productionof ammonia from fossil fuels via the energy-intensive Haber-Boschprocess. The fertilizer industry categorizes ammonia using color-coding that ostensibly reflects the carbon footprint of particular production methods. Grey or brown ammonia is manufactured by the century-old Haber-Bosch method, which uses fossil fuels as feedstock.
Green ammonia uses electrolysis (from renewable energy) to extracthydrogen from water, which is combined with nitrogen to make ammonia. Blue ammonia is produced by capturing the carbon emitted
during the ammonia-production process and “sequestering” it. However, these eco-labels ignore the nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions that
happen post-fertilizer application82 (the proposed solution for which is“more efficient” fertilizer use via precision agriculture) as well as thetrail of failures that CCS (carbon capture and storage) projects haveleft behind.83

Yara established a clean ammonia unit in February 2021,84 and it has alreadystarted running green ammonia pilots in Australia (for which it received
government funding),85 Netherlands and Norway. CF Industries announced
both green and blue ammonia projects,86 while Nutrien installed carbon capture facilities to manufacture blue ammonia87 to sell on the Enhanced Oil
Recovery (EOR) market.88 In EOR, carbon dioxide (CO2) is pressurized andpumped into “spent” oil wells to free residual crude oil that was previously
unattainable, enabling more GHG release when that oil is burned!
Solving fertilizer wastage – a longstanding concern – is also seen as key tobeing seen as green. Proponents of precision agriculture claim that digitalag tools can provide field-specific (or even plant-specific) fertilizer-dosage
recommendations that will reduce overall waste. The same tools give thesecompanies access to massive amounts of data on profitable and unprofitable farmlands,89 information about on-farm practices that involve sensors,

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 48 |
drones and other mobile applications,90 as well as evidence of farmers’ compliance (or noncompliance) with technology user agreements.91
See ETC’s fuller discussion on potential harms related to digital ag’s platforms
including land grabs and farmer-privacy breaches (see “Critical Trends” section in full report). Table 3 highlights some of the digital ag platforms offeredby fertilizer companies.

Table 3: Digital agriculture platforms of some synthetic fertilizer companies
Company

Digital Agriculture Platforms

Yara

Yara’s digital platform AtFarm92 offers crop-monitoring services using satellite images and a handheld device called N-Tester BT that measures nitrogen content, chlorophyll content, and provides
variable rate and fertilizer dosage recommendations. Other services include soil and leaf analysis
and a range of mobile apps like CheckIT (imaging to detect nutrient deficiencies) and TankmixIT (acompatibility tool for mixing Yara fertilizers with agrochemicals).

Nutrien

Nutrien’s digital platform is Echelon and offers dosage recommendations, soil and tissue testing,photosynthetic activity measurements (known as NDVI), yield data visualization, utility farm maps,
variable rate recommendations and new remote sensing technology trials.93

ICL

ICL acquired digital-ag company Growers; ICL’s digital platform is Agmatix. It also offers AngelaWeb
2.0, an online fertilizer recommendation tool for ornamental crops and fruits and vegetables.

K+S

K+S partnered with the pan-African fintech company MFS Africa in a joint venture to invest in
Akorion, an agritech company in Uganda to promote its EzyAgric App across Africa and connect
small farmers to markets.94 K+S and Spacenus, an agri-tech start-up, agreed to collaborate on asmartphone-based tool to assess levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and magnesiumin crops to make relevant fertilizer recommendations.95

PhosAgro

PhosAgro-Region, a PhosAgro subsidiary, and Exact Farming partnered to build a digital system toprovide recommendations for mineral fertilizers based on crop conditions.

MosaicMosaic partnered with Indian agri-tech start-up Unnati to digitalize the retail channel, enable payments and credit flow to retailers. Unnati will also enable retailers to source products, engage with
farmers directly, and extend credit. It will also train retailers to enable farmers to sell their farm output
through Unnati’s tech platform.96 Mosaic also partnered with Instagro in Brazil, an online selling
platform to sell its inputs to small farmers.97

Uralkali

Digital Agro is a subsidiary of Uralchem and provides precision fertilizer application services, as wellas crop inspection (scouting) with its digital services; Digital Agro, Agrosignal and Cognitive Pilot(joint venture of Sberbank and Cognitive Technologies Group that sells an AI-based driving system
for farm equipment) entered a strategic partnership to develop a unified digital-ag platform to accelerate the digitalization of Russian farming.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 49 |Big Ag Bets on a Great Green Input Upsell.
As fertilizer usage has come under increasing scrutiny for its environmental impacts, the industry is hunting for ways farmers can reduce input volumes without
reducing company profits. Yara, which claims to be the world’s largest nitrogen
fertilizer producer,98 imagines new ways of doing business amid climate-changepressures: “New models can include outcome-based business models, newpricing models, such as subscriptions or charge per hectare, or establishing low-carbon, organic and organo-mineral offerings which we do not have today.”99
Using microbes to deliver nutrients and to protect from plant-pests is increasingly seen as a green alternative/supplement to synthetic fertilizers and agrochemicals. Companies are betting that “microbial solutions”100 can give theman additional and unproblematic revenue stream – one that ticks all the boxes:
environment-sustaining, profit-sustaining and climate-smart.101 Microbe-based
inputs (“microbials” or “bioinoculants”) are products derived from livingorganisms that could, their promoters claim, confer increased nutrient-bioavailability or pest-resistance to crops. And they aren’t new: beginning in thenineteenth century, certain rhizobacteria have been added to soils with an aim
to boost crops’ nitrogen uptake. And the pest-controlling bacterium Bacillus
thuringiensis, or Bt, has been used in agriculture (including organic agriculture
systems) for more than a half-century. Now, so-called superweeds – that haveacquired resistance to traditional chemical pesticides – are spurring companies
to take a second look at microbials. Such technologies could also, claim theirpromoters, reduce the agriculture sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Big Data
processing-capacity can speed up the identification of potentially-potent microbes, while new technologies – such as synthetic biology and gene-editing– can allow naturally-occurring microbes to be “genetically remodelled”102 to
tailor them to work with particular crops and/or soils.
The market for bio-based agricultural inputs is comparatively tiny – just
US$1.5 billion for bio-fertilizers in 2020103 and US$4 billion for bio-control(pesticide) products,104 according to agribusiness consultancy IHS Markit –but future prospects are bright, with growth expected to be at least 10% and
12% annually over the next several years.
Start-ups are developing new microbial products that can be added to soils,
incorporated into seeds or sprayed on crops in the field. Companies work on
their own or in collaboration with the biggest industrial ag players. Bio-fertilizer R&D largely focuses on improved nitrogen fertilizer efficiency and uptake.
US-based Kula Bio claims to have developed a nitrogen-fixing microbial thatcan replace up to 100% of conventional nitrogen fertilizer;105 the start-up hasraised more than US$72 million in venture capital, including from AgFunder.106
Pivot Bio sells a nitrogen-fixing microbial for corn; Pivot Bio’s funders include
Breakthrough Energy Ventures (backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma,
Mukesh Ambani, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros and other billionaires) as
well as grain-trading giants Bunge and Continental Grain.107
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 50 |
Mosaic and BioConsortia began collaborating in 2020 to develop nitrogen-fixing microbials; the collaboration also gives Mosaic access to BioConsortia’s pipeline of microbial products that solubilize phosphorus and potassium, which could be marketed alongside traditional fertilizers that Mosaic
already sells.108 Yara is collaborating with Boost Biomes109 to “identify microbial products with important commercial roles.”110 Bayer has invested
in US-based Andes,111 which makes a microbial seed treatment for nitrogen
fixation, and it has a joint venture with Gingko Bioworks, called Joyn Bio,to develop a microbial that allows crops to grab nitrogen out of the air.112,113
Other companies focus on biocontrol. A decade ago, Novozymes, theworld’s largest enzymes producer, partnered with Syngenta to develop a
microbial fungicide for fruits and vegetables, now on the market as Taegro.
Novozymes’ collaboration with Bayer (then Monsanto) began in 2014.
Their exclusive partnership, “AgBio Alliance,” is now defunct,114 but Novozymes continues to partner with Bayer and with other agchem and fertilizer
giants to help them supplement their traditional offerings. Novozymes is
working with FMC to develop a microbial product to fight Asian soybean
rust,115 and UPL now sells Novozymes’ microbials in South America.116 AgBiome, a microbial developer backed by the Gates Foundation, has partneredwith Syngenta117 and BASF118 to develop and sell similar microbe-based, biocontrol products.
Microbial products are largely unregulated119 – companies don’t have toprove they work to sell them, for example – and many appear to performdifferently in the field from in the lab.120 What’s more, while microbial products are “based on”121 naturally-occurring microbes, it’s not clear in whatways the new (and proprietary) microbial strains on the market differ fromtheir natural counterparts living in the environment. Syngenta claims, forexample, that its branded microbial bio-fungicide Taegro, “based on Bacillus
amyloliquefaciens,” has been certified for use in organic agriculture systems.122
But what does it mean for a proprietary product to be “based on” a known
and naturally-occurring microorganism? To what extent has it been tweaked,
and what are the toxicology implications of those tweaks? As scientists havepointed out, some species of organisms used in microbial agricultural inputs
are known to act as opportunistic pathogens.123 When new technologies likegene-editing are involved, the regulatory landscape and the biosafety implications get even more muddled.124 Scientists have warned that introducing
microbial strains in the environment – especially ones that aren’t well understood and/or are “remodeled,” gene-edited versions of natural strains – raises biosafety concerns.125

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 51 |
Notes
1
John Dizard, “Fertilizer industry emerges from nine-year
funk,” Financial Times, 30 April 2021: https://www.ft.com/
content/105965d2-3f12-4ffb-9d8a-f54f92450eff .
2 Nutrien Annual Report 2020. Phosphate value (671) from p.
41, Potassium value (2146) from p. 30, Nitrogen value (1467)
from p. 37, Retail Crop Nutrients value (5200) from p. 90:
https://nutrien-prod-asset.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/
s3fs-public/uploads/2021-03/Nutrien-2020-Annual-Report-Enhanced.pdf.
3 Yara Annual Report 2020, p. 123. Reported as regional segments; 2783 (Europe) + 4401 (Americas) + 1803 (Africa
and Asia) + 436 (Global Plants & Operational Excellence= internal sales): https://www.yara.com/siteassets/investors/057-reports-and-presentations/annual-reports/2020/
yara-integrated-report-2020-web.pdf/.
4 Mosaic Annual Report 2020, p. 88, excludes corporate eliminations; 2543.5(Phosphate)+1988.6 (Potash)+3481.6 (Mosaic Fertilizantes): https://www.mosaicco.com/fileLibrary/publicFiles/0-2020-Annual-Report.pdf.
5 CF Industries Holdings, Inc., Annual Report 2020, p. 3:
https://s1.q4cdn.com/264428898/files/doc_financials/2020/
ar/CF-Industries-2020-Annual-Report.pdf.
6 ICL Group Ltd., Annual Report 2020. Added Potash, Phosphate Solutions, Innovative Ag Solutions, 1183 (Potash)+1871 (Phosphate Solutions) +715 (Innovative Ag Solutions), p. 274: https://s27.q4cdn.com/112109382/files/doc_
financials/2020/ar/ICL-Group-Ltd.-final-20F-2020.pdf
7 PhosAgro Annual Report 2020, (pp. 280-281). Added
segment on external revenues under phosphate-based
products and nitrogen-based products as 203561 (Phosphate based products) + 38701 (Nitrogen based products)=242,262 Rouble Million: https://www.phosagro.com/upload/iblock/a55/a5557e0f938c5aea0813044c25f65c07.pdf.
8 Sinofert Annual Report 2020, p. 30: http://www.sinofert.
com/en/5731.html.
9 Eurochem Annual Report 2020, Fertilizer segment; p. 132:https://eurochem-corporate.azureedge.net/wp-content/
uploads/2020/07/eurochem2020-annual.pdf.
10 Uralkali Annual report 2020, p. 54. The total sales figure
includes some sales from other services and products notdirectly relevant to fertilizers: https://www.uralkali.com/
upload/content/Uralkali_AR_2020-en.pdf.
11 K+S Annual Report 2020, p. 168. https://www.kpluss.
com/.downloads/annual-reports/2021/kpluss-annual-report-2020.pdf.
12 According to a summary of a proprietary report from The
Business Research Company, Chemical Fertilizers Global Market
Report 2021: COVID 19 Impact and Recovery to 2030, January 2021:
https://www.reportlinker.com/p06018805/Chemical-Fertilizers-Global-Market-Report-COVID-19-Impact-and-Recovery-to.html .
13 According to a summary of a proprietary report from The
Business Research Company, Chemical Fertilizers Global Market
Report 2021: COVID 19 Impact and Recovery to 2030, January 2021:
https://www.reportlinker.com/p06018805/Chemical-Fertilizers-Global-Market-Report-COVID-19-Impact-and-Recovery-to.html .
14 IHS Markit, “Potash Fertilizer Market and Price Analysis”
no date: https://ihsmarkit.com/products/fertilizers-potash.
html .
15 Anonymous, “Too Many to Count: Factors Driving Fertilizer
Prices Higher and Higher,” American Farm Bureau Federation, 13 December 2021: https://www.fb.org/market-intel/

16

17
18

19

20
21

22
23
24
25

26

27

28

29

too-many-to-count-factors-driving-fertilizer-prices-higherand-higher .
Anonymous, “Global fertiliser prices likely to go up as China
suspends exports: ICRA,” The Hindu Business Line, 02 August
2021: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/global-fertiliser-prices-likely-to-go-up-as-china-suspends-exportsicra/article35683321.ece .
Anon., “Morocco targets $1.7 bln in non-phosphate mining
revenue by 2030,” Reuters, 21 June 2021: https://www.reuters.com/article/morocco-mining-idUSL5N2O3348.
This includes exports from mines in Western Sahara, which
has been illegally occupied by Morocco. According to theWestern Sahara Resource Watch, “the Bou Craa mine inWestern Sahara is managed by the Office Chérifien desPhosphates SA (OCP), Morocco’s national phosphate company” and “Bou Craa contributes around 8% of OCP’s total extracted volumes, and around 20% of its total exportof phosphate rock.” For a detailed overview of Morocco’s
illegally exploited phosphate rock from Western Sahara,
see Western Sahara Resource Watch Report, P for Plunder,
April 2021: https://vest-sahara.s3.amazonaws.com/wsrw/
feature-images/File/157/6081d8e0f3bcb_Pforplunder2021_
Web.pdf .
C. Robert Taylor and Diana L. Moss, “The Fertilizer Oligopoly: The Case for Global Antitrust Enforcement,”
American Antitrust Institute, 2013, p. 37: https://www.antitrustinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FertilizerMonograph.pdf .
Emiko Terazono, “Cartel break-up reshapes fertiliser market,” Financial Times, 02 October 2013: https://www.ft.com/
content/6b87c14c-2b80-11e3-bfe2-00144feab7de .
Hinnerk Gnutzmann and Piotr Spiewanowski, “Did the
Fertilizer Cartel Cause the Food Crisis?,” 06 December
2014: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2534753 or http://dx.doi.
org/10.2139/ssrn.2534753 .
Yara website, “Our main shareholders”: https://www.yara.
com/investor-relations/share-and-debt-information/shareholders/ .
Sinofert website, Corporate Structure: http://www.sinofert.
com/en/5679.html .
OCP website, Investor Case: https://www.ocpgroup.ma/
investor-case .
Sarah Marlow, “COVID-19: Effects on the Fertilizer Industry,” IHS Markit, 24 March 2020: https://ihsmarkit.com/
research-analysis/report-covid19-effects-on-the-fertilizer-industry.html .
Wee Chian Koh and John Baffes, “Fertilizer prices to risemoderately in 2021,” World Bank Blogs, 23 December 2020:
https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/fertilizer-prices-rise-moderately-2021 .
Wee Chian Koh and John Baffes, “Fertilizer prices to risemoderately in 2021,” World Bank Blogs, 23 December 2020:
https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/fertilizer-prices-rise-moderately-2021 .
Wee Chian Koh and John Baffes, “Fertilizer prices to risemoderately in 2021,” World Bank Blogs, 23 December 2020:
https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/fertilizer-prices-rise-moderately-2021 .
Elizabeth Elkin, “Food Prices Poised to Surge With Fertilizer
at Highest in Years,” Bloomberg, 20 September 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-20/surgingfertilizer-costs-risk-making-food-even-pricier-next-year .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 52 |
30 Elizabeth Elkin and Tatiana Freitas, “Fertilizer Crisis Means
Higher Prices for Every Plate of Food (Repeat),” Bloomberg, 03
November 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-03/higher-fertilizer-prices-mean-more-food-inflation .
31 Mosaic press release, “The Mosaic Company Announces
Hurricane Ida Impacts,” 02 September 2021: https://investors.mosaicco.com/press-releases/news-details/2021/
The-Mosaic-Company-Announces-Hurricane-Ida-Impacts/
default.aspx .
32 Elizabeth Elkin and Megan Durisin, “Fertilizer Prices Are
Getting More Expensive in Europe, Adding to Food-Inflation Concerns,” Bloomberg, 29 October 2021: https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-29/european-fertilizer-prices-set-to-surge-amid-energy-squeeze .
33 Anonymous, “CF Industries halts operations at UK facilities
on higher gas prices,” Reuters, 16 September 2021: https://www.reuters.com/article/cf-inds-operations-idUSKBN2GB2CO.
34 Jasmine Ng, “China Warns on Food Security as Coal Crunch
Hits Fertilizers,” Bloomberg, 23 September 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-23/china-warns-on-food-security-as-energy-crunch-hits-fertilizers .
35 John Baffes and Wee Chian Koh, “Soaring fertilizer prices
add to inflationary pressures and food security concerns,”
World Bank Blogs, 15 November 2021: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/soaring-fertilizer-prices-add-inflationary-pressures-and-food-security-concerns .
36 Yuliya Fedorinova and Megan Durisin, “Russia to Slap Quotas on Fertilizer Exports to Safeguard Supply,” Bloomberg, 03
November 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-03/russia-to-slap-quotas-on-fertilizer-exportsto-safeguard-supply
37 Anonymous, “China’s curbs on fertiliser exports may affect India, says report,” Business Standard, 20 October 2021:
https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/china-s-curbs-on-fertiliser-exports-may-affect-india-saysreport-121102000027_1.html .
38 Sutanuka Ghosal, “China’s suspension of fertiliser exports
likely to put upward pressure on international prices:
ICRA,” Economic Times, 02 Aug 2021: https://economictimes.
indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/chem-/-fertilisers/
chinas-suspension-of-fertiliser-exports-likely-to-put-upward-pressure-on-international-prices-icra/articleshow/84969239.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst .
39 Anurag Dwary, “Farmers Spend Night In Queue As Madhya
Pradesh Fertiliser Crisis Drags On,” NDTV, 26 October 2021:
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/farmers-spendnight-in-queue-as-madhya-pradesh-fertiliser-crisis-dragson-2589060 ..
40 Anonymous, “Farmers in Haryana hold protest over short
supply of DAP fertiliser,” PTI, 26 October 2021: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/farmers-inharyana-hold-protest-over-short-supply-of-dap-fertiliser-7590836/
41 Abdul Alim Jafri, “UP: Farmer Dies of Heart Attack While
Waiting in Line to Buy FertiliserLong queues seen outside shops in Lalitpur district. Farmers
allege widespread black-marketing of DAP.” NewsClick, 23
October 2021: https://www.newsclick.in/UP-Farmer-Diesof-Heart-Attack-While-Waiting-in-Line-to-Buy-Fertiliser .
42 Nidhi Verma and Aftab Ahmed, “India faces record fertiliser subsidy in 2021/22,” Reuters, 01 December 2021: https://

43

44
45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/exclusive-india-faces-record-fertiliser-subsidy-202122-2021-11-30/ .
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, GRAIN, Greenpeace International, “New research shows 50 year bingeon chemical fertilisers must end to address the climate
crisis,”1 November 2021: https://www.iatp.org/new-research-chemical-fertilisers.
BioConsortia website under “Products & Pipeline”, “Nitrogen Fixation,” 08 December 2020: https://bioconsortia.
com/portfolio/nitrogen-fixation/.
Yara corporate release, “Yara, JERA and Idemitsu Kosan
explore clean ammonia bunkering and distribution,” 05
October 2021: https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/
yara-jera-and-idemitsu-kosan-explore-clean-ammonia-bunkering-and-distribution-collaboration-in-japan/
Yara corporate release, “Yara and Kyushu Electric Power
explore Clean Ammonia collaboration in Japan,” 27 September 2021: https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/
yara-and-kyushu-electric-power-explore-clean-ammonia-collaboration-in-japan/.
Yara corporate release, “Green ammonia from HEGRA
to secure Norwegian competitiveness,” 16 August 2021:
https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/green-ammonia-from-hegra-to-secure-norwegian-competitiveness/.
Yara corporate release, “Ørsted and Yara seek to develop
groundbreaking green ammonia project in the Netherlands,” 05 October 2020: https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/orsted-and-yara-seek-to-develop-groundbreaking-green-ammonia-project-in-the-netherlands/.
Yara corporate release, “Lean Marine and Yara Marine Technologies become one,” 06 June 2021: https://www.yara.
com/news-and-media/news/archive/2021/lean-marineand-yara-marine-technologies-become-one/ .
Yara corporate release, “Yara Growth Ventures invests in
one of Latin America’s top venture capital firms,” 08 October 2021: https://www.yara.com/news-and-media/news/archive/2021/yara-growth-ventures-invests-in-one-of-latinamericas-top-venture-capital-firms/.
Yara corporate release,” Yara invests in Boomitra to advancesoil carbon capture,” 22 June 2021: https://www.yara.com/
news-and-media/news/archive/2021/yara-invests-in-boomitra-to-advance-soil-carbon-capture/.
Yara corporate release, “Trafigura and Yara Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Explore Opportunities for Joint
Business in Clean Ammonia,” 07 June 2021:https://www.
yara.com/corporate-releases/trafigura-and-yara-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-explore -opportunities-for-joint-business-in-clean-ammonia/.
Yara corporate release, “Air Liquide, Borealis, Esso, TotalEnergies and Yara collaborate to help decarbonize the industrial basin of Normandy in France,” 12 July 2021: https://www.yara.com/news-and-media/news/archive/2021/
air-liquide-borealis-esso-totalenergies-and-yara-collaborate-to-help-decarbonize-the-industrial-basin-of-normandy-in-france/.
Yara corporate release, “Yara acquires Finnish Ecolan
to expand its organic fertilizer business,” 1 September
2021:https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/yara-acquires-finnish-ecolan-to-expand-its-organic-fertilizer-business/ .
Yara corporate release, “Yara and IBM launch an open collaboration for farm and field data to advance sustainable
food production,” 23 January 2020: https://www.yara.com/
corporate-releases/yara-and-ibm-launch-an-open-collabo-

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 53 |
ration-for-farm-and-field-data-to-advance-sustainable-foodproduction/.
56 Yara corporate release, “Yara partners with Boost Biomes
in joint development agreement,” 25 June 2020: https://www.yara.com/news-and-media/news/archive/2020/yarapartners-with-boost-biomes-in-joint-development-agreement/.
57 Yara corporate release, “Yara Announces the Commercial Launch of Agoro Carbon Alliance, enabling global farm decarbonization,” 07 May 2021: https://www.
yara.com/corporate-releases/-yara-announces-the-commercial-launch-of-agoro-carbon-alliance-enabling-global-farm-decarbonization/.
58 Yara corporate release, “Renewable hydrogen and ammonia production - YARA and ENGIE welcome a A$42.5 million
ARENA grant.” 05 May 2021: https://www.yara.com/newsand-media/news/archive/2020/renewable-hydrogen-andammonia-production-yara-and-engie-welcome-a-a$42.5million-arena-grant/.
59 Yara corporate release, “Yara to sell its 25% share in Qatar
Fertiliser Company,” 08 March 2020: https://www.yara.
com/corporate-releases/yara-to-sell-its-25-share-in-qatarfertiliser-company/.
60 Yara corporate release, “Yara continues its transformation
with divestment of Salitre phosphate mining project in Brazil,” 01 August 2021:
https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/yara-continues-its-transformation-with-divestment-of-salitre-phosphate-mining-project-in-brazil/.
61 Yara corporate release, “Yara sells LIFECO stake to Libya’s
National Oil Corporation,” 04 January 2021: https://www.
yara.com/corporate-releases/yara-sells-lifeco-stake-to-libyas-national-oil-corporation/ .
62 Nutrien news release, “Nutrien and EXMAR partner inbuilding a vessel poweredby low-carbon ammonia,”29 July 2021: https://nutrien-prod-asset.s 3 .us- east-2 .amazonaws.com/s 3 fs-public/up loads/2021-07/021-11%20Nutrien%20and%20EXMAR%20
Partner%20in%20Building%20a%20Vessel%20Powered%20by%20Low-Carbon%20Ammonia.pdf.
63 Nutrien news release, “Nutrien Launching Industry’s Most
Comprehensive Carbon
Program to Drive Sustainability in Agriculture,”30 November 2020: https://nutrien-prod-asset.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/uploads/2020-11/020-017%20
Nutrien%20Launching%20Industry%E2%80%99s%20
Most%20Comprehensive%20Carbon%20Program%20
to%20Drive%20Sustainability%20in%20Agriculture.pdf.
64 Nutrien news release, “Nutrien Announces Agreement toPurchase Brazilian Ag Retailer andSoybean Seed Producer Tec Agro,” 14 April 2020: https://nutrien-prod-asset.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/uploads/2020-04/020-008%20Nutrien%20Announces%20Agreement%20to%20Purchase%20Brazilian%20
Ag%20Retailer%20and%20Soybean%20Seed%20Producer%20Tec%20Agro.pdf.
65 Nutrien news release, “Nutrien Announces Agreement toPurchase Brazilian Ag Retailer
Agrosema,” 06 January 2020: https://nutrien-prod-asset.s 3 .us- east-2 .amazonaws.com/s 3 fs-public/up loads/2020-01/020-001%20Nutrien%20Announces%20
Agreement%20to%20Purchase%20Brazilian%20Ag%20
Retailer%20Agrosema_0.pdf

66 CF Corporate Communications, “Hydrogen Forward Coalition Formed To Advance Hydrogen in the U.S.,” 02 February 2021: https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2021/
hydrogen-forward.
67 CF Corporate Communications, “Mitsui & Co., Inc. and CF
Industries to Jointly Explore Development of Blue Ammonia Projects in the United States,” 09 August 2021: https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2021/cf-mitsui-mou.
68 CF Corporate Communications, “CF Industries Joins Hydrogen Council to further Commitment to Clean Energy
Economy,” 12 January 2021: https://www.cfindustries.com/
newsroom/2021/hydrogen-council
69 CF Corporate Communications, “CF Industries Signs Engineering and Procurement Contract with thyssenkrupp forGreen Ammonia Project,” 21 April 2021: https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2021/donaldsonville-electrolyzer,
April 21, 2021.
70 Mosaic press release, “MOSAIC AND SOUND AGRICULTURE ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TO TRANSFORM NUTRIENT EFFICIENCY,” 09 March 2021: https://investors.mosaicco.com/press-releases/news-details/2021/
Mosaic-and-Sound-Agriculture-Announce-Strategic-Partnership-to-Transform-Nutrient-Efficiency/default.aspx .
71 Mosaic press release, “MOSAIC ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH BIOCONSORTIA TO COLLABORATE ON
NEW NITROGEN-FIXING MICROBIAL PRODUCTS,” 09
December 2020:https://investors.mosaicco.com/press-releases/news-details/2020/Mosaic-Announces-Agreement-with-BioConsortia-to-Collaborate-on-New-Nitrogen-Fixing-Microbial-Products/default.aspx.
72 Mosaic press release, “MOSAIC AND AGBIOME ANNOUNCE COLLABORATION TO DEVELOP BIOLOGICALALTERNATIVES TO ENHANCE SOIL HEALTH,” 23 March2021:
https://investors.mosaicco.com/press-releases/
news-details/2021/Mosaic-and-AgBiome-Announce-Collaboration-to-Develop-Biological-Alternatives-to-Enhance-Soil-Health/default.aspx.
73 ICL press release, “ICL Completes Acquisition of Fertiláqua,”
07 January 2021: https://s27.q4cdn.com/112109382/files/
doc_news/archive/1d4ca312-3b7a-465b-be95-88cb62d26f4c.pdf.
74 ICL press release, “ICL Completes Acquisition of Compass
Minerals’ South American Plant Nutrition Business,” 01 July2021:
https://investors.icl-group.com/reports-news-andevents/press-releases/press-releases-details/2021/ICL-Completes-Acquisition-of-Compass-Minerals-South-American-Plant-Nutrition-Business/default.aspx.
75 ICL press release, “ICL EXPANDS POLYSULPHATE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK WITH
LONG-TERM DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENTS,” 09 July
2020: https://s27.q4cdn.com/112109382/files/doc_news/archive/b231b13a-3123-4758-9c52-f791653ba412.pdf.
76 ICL press release, “ICL EXPANDS POLYSULPHATE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK WITH
LONG-TERM DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENTS,” 19 February
2020: https://s27.q4cdn.com/112109382/files/doc_news/archive/42f9a412-d81c-4f29-a253-532f267707dd.pdf.
77 PhosAgro press release, “FAO and PhosAgro Launch Joint
Soil Doctors Programme,” 13 October 2020: https://www.
phosagro.com/press/company/fao-and-phosagro-launchjoint-soil-doctors-programme/.
78 PhosAgro press release, “PhosAgro-Region and Exact
Farming sign cooperation agreement,” 10 December 2020:

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 54 |
79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87
88
89
90
91

92

https://www.phosagro.com/press/company/phosagro-region-and-exact-farming-sign-cooperation-agreement/.
Nicholas Woodroof, “Nitrogen fertilizers to be most affected by tighter ESG policies, warns Fitch Ratings,” World Fertilizer Magazine, 27 July 2021: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/
nitrogen/27072021/nitrogen-fertilizers-to-be-most-affectedby-tighter-esg-policies-warns-fitch-ratings/.
Rod Nickel and Victoria Klesty, “Facing green push on farm,
fertilizer makers look to sea for growth,” Reuters, 20 January
2021: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-agriculture-fertilizers-hydrogen-focu-idUSKBN29P1EF .
See for example, Yara’s annual report from year 2020, p.
22: “We will commercialize and monetize Yara’s knowledge through digitally enabled services, primarily subscription based. Our goal is to gain access to recurring revenue
streams that have yet to be captured. Sustainability services
along with digital agronomy services and farm-to-fork connectivity services are among the services that can be commercialized this way.”
Matthew Green, “Fertiliser use is fuelling climate-warming
nitrous oxide emissions: study,” Reuters, 8 October 2020:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-no2idUSKBN26S35W .
Ketan Joshi, “Carbon capture’s litany of failures laid barein new report,” Renew Economy, 14 April 2021: https://reneweconomy.com.au/carbon-captures-litany-of-failureslaid-bare-in-new-report/ .
Yara press release, “Yara proposes NOK 20 per share dividend, establishes Clean Ammonia unit,” 09 February 2021:
https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/yara-proposes-nok-20-per-share-dividend-establishes-clean-ammoniaunit/ .
Anonymous, “Yara to study ammonia production withgreen hydrogen in Australia,” Renewables Now, 21 February
2020:
https://renewablesnow.com/news/yara-to-studyammonia-production-with-green-hydrogen-in-australia-688156/.
CF Industries press release, “Mitsui & Co., Inc. and CF Industries to Jointly Explore Development of Blue Ammonia
Projects in the United States,” 09 August 2021: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210809005743/
en/Mitsui-Co.-Inc.-and-CF-Industries-to-Jointly-ExploreDevelopment-of-Blue-Ammonia-Projects-in-the-UnitedStates
Alexander H. Tullo, “Is ammonia the fuel of the future?”
Chemical and Engineering News, 08 March 2021: https://cen.acs.
org/business/petrochemicals/ammonia-fuel-future/99/i8 .
Alexander H. Tullo, “Is ammonia the fuel of the future?”
Chemical and Engineering News, 08 March 2021: https://cen.acs.
org/business/petrochemicals/ammonia-fuel-future/99/i8.
Mark Ryan, “Agricultural Big Data Analytics and the Ethics
of Power,” J Agric Environ Ethics 33, 49–69 (2020): https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10806-019-09812-0 .
Mark Ryan, “Agricultural Big Data Analytics and the Ethics
of Power,” J Agric Environ Ethics 33, 49–69 (2020): https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10806-019-09812-0 .
Kirill Shakin, “Digital Agro began to offer offline monitoring services,” Fertilizer Daily,16 August 2021: https://www.
fertilizerdaily.com/20210816-digital-agro-began-to-offer-offline-monitoring-services/ .
Yara, “Solutions and tools for modern farming,” n. d.:https://www.yara.com/crop-nutrition/products-and-solutions/precision-farming/ .

93 Nutrien Ag Solutions, Digital Ag: https://www.nutrienagsolutions.com.au/digital-ag .
94 K+S press release, “MFS Africa and K+S invest in Akorion,”
29 November 2019: https://www.kpluss.com/en-us/press/
press-releases/MFS-Africa-and-KS-invest-in-Akorion/ .
95 K+S press release, “Cooperation between K+S and the Spacenus start-up,” 18 December 2019: https://www.kpluss.
com/en-us/press/press-releases/Cooperation-between-KSand-the-Spacenus-start-up/.
96 Krishi Jagran, “Unnati partners with Mosaic India; aims
to digitalize 1,50,000+ retailers and reach over 20 million
Farmers,” 27 November 2020: https://krishijagran.com/
industry-news/unnati-partners-with-mosaic-india-aims-todigitize-1-50-000plus-retailers-and-reach-over-20-millionfarmers/ .
97 Leonardo Gottems, “Brazil: Mosaic to sell its nutrients
online via Instagro,” eFarmNews, 21 August 2019: https://efarmnewsar.com/2019-08-21/brazil-mosaic-to-sell-its-nutrients-online-via-instagro.html .
98 See Yara website: https://latifundist.com/en/spetsproekt/612-odin-iz-vedushchih-mirovyh-proizvoditel-udobrenij10-faktov-o-yara .
99 (Emphasis added.) Yara Integrated [Annual] Report 2020,
p. 22: https://www.yara.com/investor-relations/latest-annual-report/.
100 See, for example, microbial producer AgBiome’s website:
https://www.agbiome.com/.
101 Elizabeth Elkin, “Bayer Unit Makes More Investments toCurb Synthetic Fertilizers” Bloomberg, 14 September 2021:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-14/
bayer-unit-makes-more-investments-to-curb-synthetic-fertilizers .
102 Amy Wen, Keira L. Havens, Sarah E. Bloch, Neal Shah,
Douglas A. Higgins, Austin G. Davis-Richardson, Judee
Sharon, Farzaneh Rezaei, Mahsa Mohiti-Asli, Allison Johnson, Gabriel Abud, Jean-Michel Ane, Junko Maeda, Valentina Infante, Shayin S. Gottlieb, James G. Lorigan, Lorena
Williams, Alana Horton, Megan McKellar, Dominic Soriano, Zoe Caron, Hannah Elzinga, Ashley Graham, Rosemary
Clark, San-Ming Mak, Laura Stupin, Alice Robinson, Natalie Hubbard, Richard Broglie, Alvin Tamsir, and Karsten
Temme, “Enabling Biological Nitrogen Fixation for Cereal
Crops in Fertilized Fields,” ACS Synthetic Biology, Volume 10,
Issue 12, 17 December 2021, pp. 3264–3277: https://doi.
org/10.1021/acssynbio.1c00049.
103 Marina Altman, “Biofertilizers 2021 (Free Sample),” IHS
Markit, p. 14: https://cdn.ihsmarkit.com/www/prot/
pdf/0421/Crop-Science-Biofertilizers-2021-MARKETING.
pdf .
104 IHS Markit, “Webcast: Rapid growth seen in biocontrol
formulations over next decade,” 15 June 2020: https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/webcast-rapid-growthseen-in-biocontrol-formulations-over-next.html .
105 Reena Karasin, “Kula Bio Promotes Environmental
Stewardship with its Game-changing Biofertilizer,”
Greentown Labs, 03 February 2020: https://greentownlabs.com/kula-bio-promotes-environmental-stewardship-with-its-game-changing-biofertilizer/.
106 Rob Leclerc, “Why AgFunder invested in Kula Bio,” 27 January 2022: https://agfundernews.com/why-agfunder-invested-in-kula-bio.
107 Jonathan Shieber, “With fresh support from its billionaire
backers Pivot Bio is ushering in a farming revolution,” Tech
Crunch, 30 April 2020: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/30/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 55 |
with-fresh-support-from-its-billionaire-backers-pivot-bio-isushering-in-a-farming-revolution/.
108 BioConsortia news release, “Mosaic and BioConsortia to
Collaborate on New Nitrogen-Fixing Microbial Products,”
09 December 2020: https://bioconsortia.com/2020/12/09/
mosaic-and-bioconsortia-to-collaborate-on-new-nitrogen-fixing-microbial-products/.
109 Yara Press Release, “Yara partners with Boost Biomes in joint
development agreement,” 25 June 2020: https://www.yara.
com/news-and-media/news/archive/2020/yara-partnerswith-boost-biomes-in-joint-development-agreement/.
110 See Platform, Boost Biomes: https://boostbiomes.com/.
111 Bayer News, “Andes raises USD 15 million in Series A funding co-led by Leaps by Bayer and Cavallo Ventures,” 14 September 2021: https://media.bayer.com/baynews/baynews.
nsf/id/Andes-raises-USD-15-million-in-Series-A-funding-coled-by-Leaps-by-Bayer-and-Cavallo-Ventures .
112 Jonathan Shieber, “With fresh support from its billionaire
backers Pivot Bio is ushering in a farming revolution,” Tech
Crunch, 30 April 2020: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/30/
with-fresh-support-from-its-billionaire-backers-pivot-bio-isushering-in-a-farming-revolution /.
113 Megan Molteni, “With Designer Bacteria, Crops Could
One Day Fertilize Themselves,” Wired, 14 September 2017:https://www.wired.com/story/with-designer-bacteriacrops-could-one-day-fertilize-themselves/ .
114 Reuters Staff, “Novozymes gets more partners for bio-agriculture arm beyond Bayer,” Reuters, 05 April 2019:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-novozymes-strategy-idUSKCN1RH0UF .
115 Melody M. Bomgardner, “Novozymes to develop enzymes
for crop protection, strikes deal with FMC,” Chemical & Engineering News, 06 February 2021: https://cen.acs.org/food/agriculture/Novozymes-develop-enzymes-crop-protection/99/i5 .
116 UPL Press Release, “UPL to provide Novozymes’ range ofinnovative biological Ag products in Argentina,” 09 February 2021: https://www.upl-ltd.com/press_release/KxNEul9oPnUZm9ISp1Qg3Gf0DHF1m0ZQGRRAanlv.pdf .
117 AgBiome news release: “AgBiome Announces Product Development Partnership with Syngenta,” 03 December 2014:

https://www.agbiome.com/agbiome-announces-product-development-partnership-with-syngenta/ .
118 BASF news release, “BASF and AgBiome collaborate on a
new biological fungicide for Europe, Middle East and Africa,” 30 March 2021: https://www.basf.com/global/en/media/news-releases/2021/03/p-21-173.html .
119 Rod Nickel and Karl Plume, “Farmers test microbes to nourish crops as climate pressure grows, costs rise,” Reuters, 03
February 2022: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/farmers-test-microbes-nourish-crops-climatepressure-grows-costs-rise-2022-02-03/ .
120 Rod Nickel and Karl Plume, “Farmers test microbes to nourish crops as climate pressure grows, costs rise,” Reuters, 03
February 2022: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/farmers-test-microbes-nourish-crops-climatepressure-grows-costs-rise-2022-02-03/.
121 Anon., Syngenta Public Policy Position on Diverse Agricultural Systems, November 2019, p. 9: https://www.syngenta.com/
sites/syngenta/files/presentation-and-publication/Syngenta-and-agricultural-systems.pdf .
122 Anon., Syngenta Public Policy Position on Diverse Agricultural Systems, November 2019, p. 9: https://www.syngenta.com/
sites/syngenta/files/presentation-and-publication/Syngenta-and-agricultural-systems.pdf .
123 Eduardo K. Mitter, Micaela Tosi, Dasiel Obregón, Kari E.
Dunfield and James J. Germida, “Rethinking Crop Nutritionin Times of Modern Microbiology: Innovative Biofertilizer
Technologies,” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 19 February
2021: https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.606815 .
124 For a recent survey of the regulatory landscape, see Jessica Davis Plüss, “Explainer: the controversy behind genome
editing our food,” SWI swissinfo.ch, 31 January 2022: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/explainer--the-controversy-behind-genome-editing-our-food/47288954 .
125 See abstract of Chetan Keswani et al., “Re-addressing thebiosafety issues of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria,” Science of The Total Environment, Volume 690, 2019, pp.
841-852, ISSN 0048-9697: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.046 .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Livestock
genetics
The Livestock Breeding/Genetics sector focuses on breeding material (e.g., live
animals, semen, embryos) and reproductive technologies for industrial production. The dominant species include chickens, turkeys, pigs, cattle, and high-value
farmed fish and seafood (salmon, tilapia, trout and shrimp). The industry typicallyselects for genetic traits to maximize production (i.e., rapid growth and high yields)
and to facilitate production, processing and transport of uniform animal protein
products on a massive scale. Industrial breeds can’t survive without high-protein
feeds, expensive medications and climate-controlled housing.
Leading Livestock Genetics Companies, 2020
Company/
Headquarters

Ownership and 2020 Sales,
US$ million, where available

CP Group (Thailand)
The Chearavanont family, owners
Charoen Pokphandof CP Group, rank among the richGroup Co., Ltd. is theest families in the world. CP Foods
major shareholder ofreported sales of 18,867 in 2020.1
Charoen PokphandFoods (CP Foods)
Publicly-traded; 43,185 (all segments); Tyson doesn’t report its
Tyson Foods (USA)genetics revenue separately; total
chicken segment revenue 13,2342
Mowi (Norway)

EW Group GmbH
(Germany)

Publicly-traded; 4,2884

Private, family-owned holding
group with 277 companies. EWGroup generates an estimated
3,250 in annual sales (all companies).6

Species Activity / Subsidiaries
One of the world’s biggest industrial ag firms, including
breeding, production and processing of poultry, pigs
and shrimp. Operates in China, Vietnam, Taiwan, India,
Turkey, Russia, Cambodia, Philippines, Laos and Poland.
Giant, vertically-integrated meat grower & packer.
Cobb-Vantress subsidiary is leading breeder of chicken broilers; production capacity 47 million chickens per
week (2021). 3
World’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon (estimated
20% global market share). Mowi claims “full internal
control of our own genetics.”5 Presence in 25 countries,12,000 employees.
World’s largest poultry breeding and genetics firm.
Broilers/turkeys: Aviagen and its subsidiary, Hubbard.
Layers: Hy-Line International; acquired Novogen
from Groupe Grimaud, 12/2021.
Leader in aquaculture genetics, especially salmon, trout,tilapia.
AquaGen, farmed salmon and trout breeding.
Largest tilapia breeder: GenoMar Genetics, Aquabel, AquaAmerica, AquaPorto, Vaxxinova.

| 57 |
Genus, plc (UK)

Publicly-traded, 708

Groupe Grimaud(France)

PrivateHendrix Genetics(Netherlands)

Private; 50% owned by private
equity firm Paine Schwartz, withinvestment from Mitsui & Co.
(Japan)7

Swine and cattle genetics; acquired 39% stake in Xelect, aquaculture genetics company; acquired Sergal(boar genetics).
Specialty poultry, rabbit breeds. Choice (swine division)present in 37 countries. Blue Genetics (shrimp genetic
selection).
Turkeys, layers, traditional poultry, swine, salmon, trout
and shrimp. Brands include: Hybrid, ISA, Dekalb,
Bovans, Shaver, Babcock, Hisex, SASSO, Hypor,
Kona Bay, Troutlodge and Landcatch. More than
3,500 employees; operations in more than 25 countries.

Source: ETC Group, from company reporting and industry news

Trends: chew on thisETC finds:• Ever increasing concentration in livestock genetics; multi-species
breeders and private equity firms flock to aquaculture and fish genetics.
• China’s supersized stake in livestock production/consumption/
genetics.
• Widespread applications of digital technologies; genomics andgene editing research.

Despite the explosive growth in animal protein consumption worldwide andthe massive contribution of industrial livestock to greenhouse gas emissions,very few are monitoring the degree to which a handful of transnational firms
supply the breeding stock and reproductive technologies for an ever-increasing share of the world’s industrial meat, milk, eggs and farmed fish/seafood.
Smaller and less visible than any other sector of the industrial food chain, theglobal market for livestock genetics will reach an estimated US$8.9 billion by2024.8 However, market intelligence on this sector is notoriously unreliablebecause many of the biggest players are privately held, highly secretive and rely
on proprietary genetics. The threat of virulent diseases (e.g., highly pathogenic
avian influenza, African swine fever) also requires stringent biosecurity measures that further shroud the livestock genetics industry in secrecy.
Globally, the widespread adoption of industrial livestock genetics is the primary driver of the loss of farm animal genetic diversity. With the introduction of industrial breeding stock, native animals are subject to rapid replacement or genetic dilution.
Although the value of the livestock genetics sector is relatively tiny (less than
one-fifth the size of the global seed industry, for example), its proprietary genetic
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 58 |
stock underpins a massive animal protein industry that has far-reaching impacts
on greenhouse gas emissions and the environment (including water and soil
pollution and the import of feed from countries with high levels of deforestation), livestock diversity, animal welfare and more. In this report we focus on
three sub-sectors of industrial livestock genetics: poultry, swine and aquaculture.
INDUSTRIAL POULTRY BREEDERS
With an estimated market value of US$311 billion in 2020, poultry is theworld’s most popular animal protein, and consumption is growing at a fasterrate than any other animal protein sector.9 Analysts predict that the poultry
meat market will hit US$422 billion by 2025.10 Globally, poultry is expected toaccount for 41% of all the protein from meat sources by 2030.11
Poultry: Who Rules the Roost?

Commercial Poultry Genetics – Leading Companies by Sector, 2020
Broilers

LayersTurkeys

EW Group (Germany)
Hendrix Genetics (Netherlands)
Tyson Foods (USA)EW Group (Germany)
Hendrix Genetics (Netherlands)
Novogen (France) –acquired by EW Group in
2021

EW Group (Germany)
Hendrix Genetics (Netherlands)

Source: ETC Group
Globally, just three companies control commercial poultry genetics,
making it the most concentrated sector in the industrial food chain.
EW Group and Hendrix Genetics are both family-owned dynasties that
focus on multi-species livestock genetics. (As of November 2021, Hendrix
Genetics is 50% owned by private equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners.12)
Tyson Foods (US$43 billion sales, 202013) is the world’s 5th largest food &beverage firm, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Cobb-Vantress, is one of
the world’s three largest chicken meat (broilers) breeders.
Layers (chickens raised for eggs)
Two privately-held companies dominate worldwide:(1) EW Group’s Hy-Line Genetics; 2) Hendrix Genetics. The third multinational breeder of layer genetics, Novogen (formerly owned by France-basedGroupe Grimaud), was acquired by EW Group in December 2021.14
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 59 |
China, the world’s largest egg market, accounts for more than 40% of world
egg production. In 2009, China’s small farmers, not factory farms, produced
over 75% of China’s eggs.15 Today, China’s layers are rapidly industrializing.
The vast majority of China’s breeding stock for industrial laying hens comesfrom EW Group and Hendrix. In 2019, EW Group’s Hy-Line Genetics estimated that its genetics accounted for a 60% share of the total Chinese layer
market.16
Broilers (chickens raised for meat)
Two companies dominate industrial breeding worldwide: 1) Tyson Foods
subsidiary: Cobb-Vantress; 2) EW Group (subsidiaries: Aviagen; Hubbard). In 2020, China produced 18.6 million metric tons of chicken, virtually
all of it sourced from imported breeding stock.17
TurkeysTwo companies overwhelmingly dominate: Hendrix Genetics and EWGroup. Smaller breeders that specialize in heritage breeds exist, but they
do not compete on the same scale. The global turkey meat market peaked at
almost US$13 billion in 2019.The U.S. accounts for about 45%, by volume, ofworldwide production.18
Market Concentration in Poultry Genetics Breeds Dependence &Vulnerability• Some countries and even continents depend on just two industrial
breeders to provide the genetic stock for their chicken broiler industry.19
According to Australia’s Chicken Meat Federation, “almost all” of thecountry’s broilers are based on two hybrid strains (commonly referred
to as Ross and Cobb) that are owned by two companies (EW Group andTyson, respectively).
• Even countries that are self-sufficient in production of chicken meat recognize that their dependence on imported breeding stock raises serious food security concerns. In 2020, Russia imported 98% of its broiler
breeding stock from multinational firms.20 Already in 2020, the Russian
government feared “that possible sanctions affecting the import of crossbreeds could drive the Russian poultry industry to the edge of collapse.”21• In 2020, China produced 18.6 million metric tons of chicken, virtually allof it sourced from imported breeding stock. In December 2021, Chinese
breeders unveiled three new domestically bred varieties that they hope
will end the country’s 17-year reliance on imported genetic resources.22
Industrial livestock genetics is penetrating all regions of the globe, even under the guise of “sustainable agriculture.” For example, in some African andAsian countries, where indigenous birds still account for up to 80% of thepoultry population, imports of poultry breeding stocks could be imminent.23
In 2019 Hendrix Genetics was awarded a multi-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the Sustainable Access to Poultry Parental Stock
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 60 |
to Africa (SAPPSA) program.24 The goal is “to provide better breeding stockand genetic solutions” for poultry farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and more). According to Hendrix, the company provides disease-free breeding stock and instruction on
how to build biosecure poultry housing that will allow for export of quality
genetics.25 The project claims that it will introduce crossbreeds that are suited
to challenging environments26 and even contribute to achieving the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals.27 The concern is that the introduction ofimported stock and technologies will ultimately create greater dependence
on capital intensive inputs, marginalize local livestock producers and accelerate the loss of indigenous breeds.

Fast-Growing Broiler Breeding Backfires
Today’s industrial chicken broilers have become the world’s most prolific and popular protein. But industrial breeding is also undermining
the birds’ fitness. The consolidation of industrial chicken breeding in
the hands of just two companies has resulted in two fast-growing hybrid lines that account for 90% of all broiler chickens worldwide: 1)
EW Group’s Ross 308; and 2) Tyson’s Cobb 500.28 Despite their spectacular feed-conversion rates, the altered genetics of these birds has
spawned a number of physical maladies that degrade the texture ofchicken meat and harm animal welfare.29 Many industrial chickens (including both Ross and Cobb) suffer from muscle myopathy, resulting
in conditions such as “spaghetti breast,” “woody breast” and “white
striping disease.” When the birds gain weight too quickly their circulation systems can’t keep pace. Portions of the breast become deadtissue because they don’t have adequate blood supply. Woody breast
syndrome causes muscle tissue to harden. (In 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that 5-10% of boneless chicken breast fillets worldwide
were affected by woody breast.)30 Spaghetti breast results in soft andmushy muscle fibre that comes apart in stringy sections. When birds
are affected with these muscle disorders, the low-quality meat must
be discarded or sold at a discount. Some heavy, large-breasted birds
are developing an additional health problem: subcutaneous cellulitis,
a condition that results from sitting in damp manure.31 Food processors
are now under increasing pressure from the public to sell “humanely
raised meat” – including demand for “slower growing broilers.” But ittakes time to modify global flocks; according to one industry spokesperson, there’s a three-to-five-year gap between genetic selections
made at the pedigree level and the chicken on your plate.32

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 61 |The Weakest Link
Almost 10 years ago, FAO warned that “livestock health is the weakest linkin our global health chain.”33 Over 70% of novel human diseases that haveemerged in recent decades are of animal origin,34 and factory farms are incubators for zoonotic diseases (those transmitted from animals to humans).
The genetically-uniform traits that underpin the spectacular growth of industrial livestock breeds is precisely what makes these flocks and herds exceptionally vulnerable to disease outbreaks. One veterinarian describes thethreat of avian influenza to industrial chickens: “They all have the same immune system, or lack of an immune system, so once a virus gets inside abarn, it’s going to spread like wildfire.”35 If a virus that emerges on a factory
farm mutates, it can pose dire threats to human health. A 2018 study examining the emergence of 39 highly pathogenic avian viruses found that all but
two came from industrial poultry farms.36
Gene Editing for Ethical Eggs?
Gene editing research is underway in the poultry sector worldwide, especially related to the development of vaccines (e.g., avian influenza, Marek’s
disease and infectious bursal disease). To sidestep public resistance to acontroversial genetic engineering technology, advocates of gene editing are
touting it as the key to improving animal welfare for factory farm animals.37
Ironically, this means addressing standard industry practices that are now
deemed “unethical.” For example, the layer chicken industry disposes of 4
billion day-old male chicks per year.38 Research teams in the UK, Australia
and Israel are exploring the use of CRISPR gene editing to control the sex ofchicken offspring to dramatically reduce culling in the poultry industry.39 If
hens produce only female chicks, it would prevent the killing of billions of
unwanted, day-old male chicks that are culled after hatching.40 Germany andFrance have already passed laws to ban the culling of day-old chicks beginning in 2023. However, alternative methods of embryo sexing (e.g., sorting
based on sex hormones; MRI scans) are being developed that do not involve
genetic engineering.41
INDUSTRIAL SWINE GENETICS
Most swine genetic companies are privately-held, with limited financial disclosure requirements. That makes it hard to assess company-level performance and the sector’s level of concentration. The UK’s Genus Plc, whichowns PIC (Pig Improvement Company) and is among the few publicly-traded animal genetics companies, claims 16% global market share for pig genetics.42 Just like poultry breeders, pig breeders rely on a narrow range of uniform breeds to facilitate increasingly intensive livestock operations (because
uniform breeds imply uniform feed and infrastructure requirements).43

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 62 |Pig Virus Provides Pandemic Preview
In January 2020, when WHO began reporting on Covid-19, a highly transmissible and potentially deadly virus circulating in China,44 the country’s pork industry had been dealing with its own highly transmissible virus for more thana year. African Swine Fever (ASF) – a hemorrhagic disease in pigs that is almost
always fatal – broke out in August 2018 and quickly spread; there is no vaccine
and no effective treatment for ASF. The virus decimated China’s pig population.
In the first year of the virus outbreak, researchers estimate that more than 43
million pigs in China died of ASF or were culled to prevent AFS-transmission.45
By the time the epidemic was (mostly46) reined in, in 2020, the toll amounted
to as much as 60% of China’s pig herd.47 The world’s biggest pork-consuming
and pork-exporting country responded to the crisis, first, by securing imports
for domestic consumption, then by restocking its breeding herd to recoup production capacity – at an estimated cost of US$60 billion.48
Throughout 2020, thousands of breeding sows and boars flew to China by
chartered plane; it was a welcome lift to an airline industry languishing due
to Covid-related travel restrictions.49 China’s record imports brought rewards
for the biggest pig breeders outside China, though not indefinitely. Axiom(France), Genus Plc (UK), Topigs Norsvin (Netherlands) and Genesus(Canada) exported in record numbers; at the same time, Chinese companies began expanding their own production-capacity as pork prices peakedin late 2019 and early 2020.50 By September 2020, China’s Muyuan Foods
had opened the world’s largest pig production facility near Nanyang. The
multistorey site can house 84,000 sows and aims to produce more than 2
million pigs per year.51
Fattening China’s Pig Farms
The ASF epidemic also catalyzed a drastic reduction in the number of China’s
small-scale, family-owned pig farms,52 a shift that had been on the government’s agenda before the ASF outbreak and was already underway.53 Just
before the turn of this century, China was home to more pig diversity thanany other country (with 72 breeds),54 but, by 2005, 74% of China’s pigs wereraised in industrial systems.55 With industrialization, one hybrid breed replaced breeds of different sizes and attributes previously raised on smallfamily farms.56
In 2021, Canada’s Genesus updated its rankings of the world’s top 40“mega producers” – that is, pork producers with more than 100,000 sows– based on late 2020 counts.57 China has more companies on the list thanany other country (15 of the 40), including all of the list’s top five: Muyuan Foods, Wens Group, WH Group (Smithfield Foods), ZhenbangGroup and New Hope Group; state-owned COFCO is #18. Five of the
15 Chinese firms are on the list for the first time, suggesting the breakneck
pace of industrialization and the breathtaking speed with which China
re-stocked its herd, with an aim to (eventually) wean itself from foreign
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 63 |
breeding stock. (Genus Plc claims it sells breeding material to one third of
the top 50 pork producers in China58 and receives royalties from its proprietary genetics based on “key performance variables,” such as pig weightat slaughter.59) China’s blockbuster swine market enticed Thailand’s CP
Foods to amass 43 swine-related firms in the country (39 swine farming
operations and four pork processing companies) in a deal valued at morethan US$4 billion.60 The acquisitions give CP Foods a capacity of 7.2 million
pigs annually in 22 of China’s provinces.61 CP Foods’ massive investment in
China follows its 2019 acquisition of Canadian pork processor HyLife for
US$272 million.62
Smart Swine?
Pig farming’s intensification also intensifies challenges to feeding, containing, monitoring, processing and sanitation, and, of course, new technologies
are proposed to help overcome those challenges. A package of artificial intelligence technologies that process massive amounts of data in real-time includes electronic tagging, facial and voice recognition (to identify distressed
piglet squeals) and heat-sensing. AI packages – such as Alibaba’s “ET Agricultural Brain”63 – are being used in the world’s biggest swine operations.64“Given the computation time, the data required, the hardware infrastructure needed, and the cost, it currently makes sense to utilize AI
only if you are raising millions of pigs, not just one or two… The logic
is striking. A demand for pork drives industrialized farming of pigs,
which increases disease transmission. The constant emergence ofdiseases drives the implementation of new technologies like AI pork
farming. These technologies go on to make pork cheap, driving evenmore availability and demand… AI is not the balm to any problem—it
is just one piece of the ever-hungry quest for scale.” – from Xiaowei
Wang, Blockchain Chicken Farm and Other Stories of Tech from China’s Countryside

While companies apply artificial intelligence technologies to enable bigger
and bigger swine operations, some companies are also aiming to apply genetic technologies to alter the pigs themselves. New ‘gene-editing’ technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 make it possible to delete or rearrange pieces ofan animal’s genetic material in order to ‘engineer’ particular traits, such as
disease-resistance or heat-tolerance. Genus’s PIC has produced hundredsof gene-edited pigs – with thousands of progeny – that have been engineered to resist the virus that causes Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). PRRSv is highly infectious and affects pig farms in the
U.S. particularly.65 While Genus reports that its edited pigs are making their
way through the regulatory process in both the U.S. and China, company
researchers admit that newborn edited piglets exhibit the ‘correct’ edit only
about 20 to 30% of the time.66
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 64 |AQUACULTURE GENETICS /BREEDING
Industrial livestock breeders, as well as private equity investors,67 are flocking to fish farming and genetics because aquaculture is booming worldwide,
and the potential to apply genetic selection and genomics to high-value species is relatively untapped.
• Globally, since 2016, aquaculture has been the primary source of fish
available for human consumption.68 From 1990 to 2018, global aquaculture production shot up 527% and is projected to keep growing.69• The global aquaculture market was valued at an estimated US$204 billion in2020 and analysts predict it will reach US$262 billion by the end of 2026.70• Asia is by far the world’s largest and most diverse aquaculture producer,
and China alone accounted for 58% of the global aquaculture volume
and 59% of its value in 2017.71• Multinational livestock genetics firms that conduct R&D in aquaculture
are focusing on a handful of high-value aquaculture species: primarily
salmon, shrimp, trout and tilapia. By contrast, aquaculture globally encompasses around 425 farmed species (fish, shellfish and seaweeds).72• Only 11% of the world’s total aquaculture harvest is traded internationally,73 andit focuses on relatively few species from just a handful of countries. Salmon,
shrimp, catfish and tilapia collectively account for about one-third of internationally traded seafood by value, but only 8% of global seafood production.74
Atlantic salmon is industrial fish farming’s most profitable and high-techsuperstar – generating an estimated US$18 billion in annual sales.75 Norway
and Chile are the world’s largest producers. Similar to terrestrial factory
farms, industrial salmon operations have become massive breeding grounds
for environmental pollution, diseases and parasites.76
Big Data and Genomics
The application of genetics and genomics technologies to industrial aquaculture is the focus of both public and private sector research. Gene-editing(CRISPR Cas 9) experiments are underway worldwide, with most of the focus on traits such as faster growth, disease resistance and sterility.77
One target of gene editing is the goal of developing parasite-resistant salmon. Industrial salmon operations worldwide are plagued by parasites thatfeed on fishes’ skin and blood, causing lesions and mass mortality in crowded pens. A team of Canadian and Japanese researchers are focusing on genesthat confer resistance to sea lice in wild Pacific salmon, with the goal of using
gene editing to engineer the same trait in farmed Atlantic salmon.78
Perhaps more fanciful, Chinese scientists are using gene editing to develop“bone free” carp species.79 The prospect of “genetically filleted fish” is a complex, longer-term goal, but Chinese researchers have reportedly knocked out
at least two genes that control boniness.80
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 65 |CRISPR Salmon with Reversible Sterility: AKA Terminator
Every year hundreds of thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon escape
into the wild.81 The escape of salmon and the possible interbreedingwith wild salmon threatens to pollute the wild gene pool and spreaddisease.82 One focus of gene editing is the development of salmon thatare engineered to be sterile so that escapees can’t interbreed with wild
salmon. In addition to biocontainment, engineered sterility offers, intheory, the additional benefit of protecting the company’s proprietaryfish stock.83 A team of researchers in Norway is using gene editing(CRISPR-Cas9) to knock out the “dead-end” gene in salmon, yielding
salmon embryos that lack germ cells and are hence sterile. By injecting
the genetically sterile embryos with messenger RNA technology, thescientists have successfully restored the fish’s fertility – allowing for thedevelopment of fertile broodstock that will produce sterile offspringfor hatcheries. The research opens the door to “a possibility for largescale production of germ-cell free Atlantic salmon offspring throughthe genetically sterile broodstock, which can pass the sterility trait on
to the next generation.”84 For ETC Group, and anyone familiar with thehistory of Terminator seed technology, the prospect of commercializing gene-edited salmon with engineered sterility genes is a nightmare
scenario: the engineered sterility is reversible and cannot function asa reliable biocontainment tool.85 The gene-editing research on salmon
sterility in Norway is still in early stages and has not yet undergone
ecological impact assessment, regulatory review or public debate. The
aquaculture genetics industry is – thus far – skittish about publicly endorsing controversial genetic engineering technologies.86

Industrial fish farms already employ a vast array of high-tech, data-intensive
technologies at all levels of breeding, production and processing, including
artificial intelligence and surveillance for biosecurity and tracing. For example, one of the world’s largest salmon producers, Cermaq, is pioneering its
iFarm in Norway that uses real-time facial recognition technology that reportedly allows identification of each individual salmon and ensures that thefish are healthy.87 The technology is also designed to cut costs by monitoring
sea lice.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 66 |
Notes

See CPF website, CPF Sales Revenue: 590,000 million THB:
https://www.cpfworldwide.com/en/investors/highlights/
revenue .
2 Tyson Foods, Form 10-K, 2020, p. 33: https://s22.q4cdn.
com/104708849/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/Tyson-202010K.pdf .
3 Tyson website: https://ir.tyson.com/about-tyson/facts/default.aspx .
4 Mowi Annual Report, 2020; revenue for 2020, €3,760
million, p. 10: https://corpsite.azureedge.net/corpsite/
wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Mowi_Integrated_Annual_
Report_2020.pdf .
5 Mowi website: https://mowi.com/about/.
6 Catherine Lankes, “Forbes: A New Billionaire Every 17
Hours,” Deutsche Welle, 08 April 2021: https://p.dw.com/p/3rjXP .
7 Genus Annual Report, 2021; revenue for 2020, £551.4 million, p. 2: https://www.genusplc.com/media/1875/genus-plc-annual-report-2021.pdf .
8 ResearchandMarkets, “Animal Genetics Industry Insights,
2019-2024 - Existing & Emerging Technologies, Supply
Chain Analysis, Profitability by Region,” NASDAQ OMX’s
News Release Distribution Channel, 31 March 2020. https://www.
globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/31/2008939/0/
en/Animal-Genetics-Industry-Insights-2019-2024-Existing-Emerging-Technologies-Supply-Chain-Analysis-Profitability-by-Region.html.
9 Derya Yildiz, “Global Poultry Industry and Trends,” Feed Additive, 11 March 2021: https://www.feedandadditive.com/
global-poultry-industry-and-trends/.
10 Derya Yildiz, “Global Poultry Industry and Trends,” Feed Additive, 11 March 2021: https://www.feedandadditive.com/
global-poultry-industry-and-trends/.
11 OECD and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, “OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030,” 05
Jul 2021: https://doi.org/10.1787/19428846-en.
12 Hendrix Genetics, “Paine Schwartz Makes Strategic Investment in Hendrix Genetics, 22 November 2021: https://www.
hendrix-genetics.com/en/news/paine-schwartz-makes-strategic-investment-hendrix-genetics/.
13 Tyson Foods news release, “Tyson Foods Reports Strong
Fourth Quarter And Fiscal 2020 Results,” 16 November
2020:
https://www.tysonfoods.com/news/news-releases/2020/11/tyson-foods-reports-strong-fourth-quarter-andfiscal-2020-results.
14 Verbeek news release, “Takeover Novogen and Verbeek by
EW GROUP,” 28 December 2021: https://www.verbeek.
com/gb/news/takeover-novogen-and-verbeek-by-ewgroup/190 .
15 Vincent Guyonnet, “Chinese egg companies increasingly
large scale,” WATTPoultry.com, 16 December 2021: https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/44105-chinese-egg-companies-increasingly-large-scale.
16 Anonymous, “HatchTech selected by Huayu to build major
new Chinese parent stock hatchery for Hy-Line genetics,”
The Poultry Site, 06 December 2019: https://www.thepoultrysite.com/news/2019/12/hatchtech-selected-by-huayuto-build-major-new-chinese-parent-stock-hatchery-for-hyline-genetics .
17 Zhao Yimeng, “Broiler breakthrough for Chinese chicken,”
China Daily, 10 December 2021: https://www.chinadaily.
com.cn/a/202112/10/WS61b2ba9fa310cdd39bc7a91b.html .
1

18 Anonymous, “Poland Emerges as the Fastest-Growing Exporter at the Global Turkey Meat Market,” Global Trade Mag,
31 October 2020:
https://www.globaltrademag.com/poland-emerges-as-thefastest-growing-exporter-at-the-global-turkey-meat-market/ .
19 Australia, for example. According to the Australian Chicken
Meat Federation: “Almost all of Australia’s meat chickens
today are derived from hybrid strains developed by Aviagen
and Cobb, and the specific hybrid breeds used in Australia(referred to as ‘Ross’ and ‘Cobb’) are pretty much the sameas are used right around the world.”
20 Vladislav Vorotnikov, “Russia wants to cut import-dependence breeding stock,” Poultry World, 09 June 2020: https://www.poultryworld.net/poultry/russia-wants-to-cut-import-dependence-breeding-stock/ .
21 Vladislav Vorotnikov, “Russia wants to cut import-dependence breeding stock,” Poultry World, 09 Jun 2020: https://www.poultryworld.net/poultry/russia-wants-to-cut-import-dependence-breeding-stock/ .
22 Zhao Yimeng, “Broiler breakthrough for Chinese chicken,”
China Daily, 10 December 2021: https://www.chinadaily.
com.cn/a/202112/10/WS61b2ba9fa310cdd39bc7a91b.html.
23 FAO, “Gateway to poultry production and products,” n. d.:https://www.fao.org/poultry-production-products/production/breeding/en/ .
24 Hendrix news release, “Improving genetic performance inAfrica,” 21 July 2021:
https://www.hendrix-genetics.com/en/news/improving-genetic-performance-africa/ .
25 Hendrix news release, “The sustainable African poultry
project: one year later,” 12 December 2019: https://www.
hendrix-genetics.com/en/news/sappsa-sustainable-african-poultry-project-one-year-later/ .
26 FAO, “Surge in diseases of animal origin necessitates new
approach to health – report,” 16 December 2013. https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/210621/icode/ .
27 Hendrix Genetics, “Sustainable Access to Poultry Parent
Stock to Africa,” n. d.: https://www.hendrix-genetics.com/
en/about/our-company/sustainability-program/sappsa/ .
28 Michael Scaturro, “How Chickens Became Like Apple andAndroid Phones,” Heated, 14 January 2020: https://heated.
medium.com/how-chickens-became-like-apple-and-android-phones-85378e97799e. Scaturro’s excellent article
traces the history of Ross and Cobb.
29 Bob Reid, “Super growth rate damaging to broiler chicken,”
Ontario Farmer, 21 January 2022.
30 Kelsey Gee, “Bigger Chickens Bring a Tough New Problem:‘Woody Breast’; Muscle condition in fast-growing broilers
poses no human-health risk but can make meat feel ‘gummy,’ harder to chew,” Wall Street Journal, 28 March 2016.
31 Bob Reid, “Super growth rate damaging to broiler chicken,”
Ontario Farmer, 21 January 2022.
32 Austin Alonzo, “Slower growing broilers coming in 2026,”
WattPoultry.com, January 2022:
https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/44272-slower-growing-broilers-coming-in-2026 .
33 FAO, “Surge in diseases of animal origin necessitates new
approach to health – report,” 16 December 2013: https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/210621/icode/ .
34 FAO, “Surge in diseases of animal origin necessitates new
approach to health – report,” 16 December 2013. https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/210621/icode/.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 67 |
35 Andrew Jacobs, “Avian Flu Spreading Through Eastern U.S.
Worries Poultry Farms,” New York Times, 25 February 2022.
36 Andrew Jacobs, “Avian Flu Spreading Through Eastern U.S.
Worries Poultry Farms,” New York Times, 25 February 2022.
37 Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Genome editing and farmed
animal breeding: social and ethical issues, 21 December
2021: https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/.
38 See, for example, the website of Israel-based Eggxyt, a company using CRISPR to develop sex detection of chick embryos: https://www.eggxyt.com/.
39 Gretchen Vogel, “‘Ethical’ eggs could save male chicks
from mass slaughter,” Science, 14 August 2019: https://www.
science.org/content/article/ethical-eggs-could-save-malechicks-mass-slaughter .
40 Mark Pasveer, “Gene-editing breakthrough could end malechick culling,” Poultry World, 16 December 2021: https://www.
poultryworld.net/Genetics/Articles/2021/12/Gene-editingbreakthrough-could-end-male-chick-culling-832053E/.
41 Gretchen Vogel, “‘Ethical’ eggs could save male chicks
from mass slaughter,” Science, 14 August 2019: https://www.
science.org/content/article/ethical-eggs-could-save-malechicks-mass-slaughter.
42 Genus Plc, Annual Report, 2021, p. 5: https://www.genusplc.
com/media/1875/genus-plc-annual-report-2021.pdf . According to the company, Genus’s estimate is based on “government agencies, Eurostat, pork organisations and Genus
estimates.”
43 See, for example, G. Q. Tang, J. Xue, M. J. Lian, R. F. Yang,
T. F. Liu, Z. Y. Zeng, A. A. Jiang, Y. Z. Jiang, L. Zhu, L. Bai,
Z. Wang and X. W. Li, “Inbreeding and genetic diversity inthree imported Swine breeds in China using pedigree data,”
Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences, Vol. 26, 6 (2013), pp.
755-65: https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.2012.12645 .
44 World Health Organization, Archived: WHO Timeline – Covid-19,
27 April 2020: https://www.who.int/news/item/27-042020-who-timeline---covid-19 .
45 Shibing You, Tingyi Liu, Miao Zhang, Xue Zhao, Yizhe Dong,
Bi Wu, Yanzhen Wang, Juan Li, Xinjie Wei and Baofeng Shi,
“African swine fever outbreaks in China led to gross domestic product and economic losses,” Nature Food, published
online 27 September 2021: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016021-00362-1.
46 For current information on African Swine Fever outbreaks,
see: https://www.woah.org/en/disease/african-swine-fever/#ui-id-2 . .
47 Dominique Patton, “Pigs fly in as China replenishes world’s
biggest hog herd,” Reuters, 02 April 2020: https://www.
reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-pigs-imports/
pigs-fly-in-as-china-replenishes-worlds-biggest-hog-herdidUSKBN21K14T .
48 Genesus, “World Mega Producers,” n. d.: https://genesus.
com/global-mega-producers/ .
49 Dominique Patton, “Pigs fly in as China replenishes world’s
biggest hog herd,” Reuters, 02 April 2020: https://www.
reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-pigs-imports/
pigs-fly-in-as-china-replenishes-worlds-biggest-hog-herdidUSKBN21K14T .
50 Evelyn Cheng, “China’s hog farmers struggle as pork prices
swing and throw off debt-fueled expansion plans,” CNBC,
12 September 2021: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/chinas-hog-farmers-struggle-as-pork-prices-swing-and-throwoff-debt-fueled-expansion-plans.html .
51 Dominique Patton, “Flush with cash, Chinese hog producer builds world’s largest pig farm,” Reuters, 07 December

52

53

54

55

56

57
58
59

60

61

62

63

64

2020: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-muyuanfoods-change-s/flush-with-cash-chinesehog-producer-builds-worlds-largest-pig-farm-idUSKBN28H0MU .
Xiaowei Wang, “Behind China’s ‘pork miracle’: how technology is transforming rural hog farming,” The Guardian, 08
October 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/08/behind-chinas-pork-miracle-how-technology-is-transforming-rural-hog-farming .
“We will ensure that livestock, poultry, and aquaculture
farming are further standardized and brought up to scale,”according to China’s Communist Party’s 13th Five-Year Plan for
Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China(2016-2020), Chapter 18, Section 2: https://en.ndrc.gov.cn/
policies/202105/P020210527785800103339.pdf .
FAO, “Country Report for the Preparation of the First Reporton the State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources,” Report on Domestic Animal Genetic Resources in China, Beijing, June
2003, p. 12: https://fermer.ru/files/v2/forum/256739/china.
pdf .
Beate D. Scherf & Dafydd Pilling, eds., The Second Report on theState of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,
2015, FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food andAgriculture Assessments, 2015, p. 182: https://reliefweb.int/
sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/a-i4787e.pdf .
Xiaowei Wang, “Behind China’s ‘pork miracle’: how technology is transforming rural hog farming,” The Guardian, 08
October 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/08/behind-chinas-pork-miracle-how-technology-is-transforming-rural-hog-farming .
Genesus, “World Mega Producers,” n. d.: https://genesus.
com/global-mega-producers/ .
Genus Plc, “Interim Results: Half year ended 31 December
2020,” p. 8: https://www.genusplc.com/media/1727/genus-results-presentation-31-december-2020-final.pdf.
According to Genus, Annual Report, 2021, p. 116: “We receive
royalty payments from certain porcine customers based on
key performance variables, such as the number of pigs born
per litter, the number of litters born per sow and the average slaughter weight of the animals born.”
CP Foods news release, “CPF proposes to integrate swine
business in China / CTI, its subsidiary, to acquire pig farms in
China / Profit jumps abruptly in line with business expansion
plan to further growth,” 19 September 2020: https://www.
cpfworldwide.com/en/media-center/corporate-1436 .
Masayuki Yuda, “Thai CP Group to build China pork business through share swap,” Nikkei Asia, 14 September 2020:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Agriculture/Thai-CPGroup-to-build-China-pork-business-through-share-swap .
Anonymous, “Thai CPF to acquire Canadian pork producer
HyLife for $372 million,” Reuters, 21 April 2019: https://www.
reuters.com/article/us-charoen-pok-food-investment/thaicpf-to-acquire-canadian-pork-producer-hylife-for-372-million-idUSKCN1RY07K .
Xiaowei Wang, “Behind China’s ‘pork miracle’: how technology is transforming rural hog farming,” The Guardian, 08
October 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/08/behind-chinas-pork-miracle-how-technology-is-transforming-rural-hog-farming .
Vincent Ter Beek, “Alibaba Cloud launches smart brain for
pig farms,” Pig Progress, 20 June 2018: https://www.pigprogress.net/world-of-pigs/alibaba-cloud-launches-smart-brainfor-pig-farms/ .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 68 |
65 David Thompson and Madonna Benjamin, “UPDATE:
Progress toward PRRSv-resistant pigs,” Michigan State Extension, 26 July 2021: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/
update-progress-toward-prrsv-resistant-pigs .
66 Antonio Regalado, “Lessons from the Pig Epidemic,” Technology Review, 11 December 2020, p. 47.
67 Dominic Welling, “Private equity’s massive war chest puts
seafood industry in the crosshairs,” Intrafish, 06 December
2021: https://www.intrafish.com. See also: Drew Cherry,“A flood of new funds are investing in aquaculture, fisheries
and seafood. Will they succeed?,” Intrafish, 25 August 2020:
https://www.intrafish.com/opinion/a-flood-of-new-fundsare-investing-in-aquaculture-fisheries-and-seafood-willthey-succeed-/2-1-863268 .
68 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2020: http://www.fao.
org/state-of-fisheries-aquaculture.
69 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2020: http://www.fao.
org/state-of-fisheries-aquaculture.
70 U.S. Department of Commerce, “Aquaculture Snapshot: Industry Summary,” International Trade Administration, n.d.:
https://www.trade.gov/aquaculture-industry-summary.
71 Rosamund L. Naylor et al., “A 20 Year Retrospective Review
of Global Aquaculture,” Nature, 24 March 2021: https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41586-021-03308-6.
72 Rosamund L. Naylor, et al., “A 20 Year Retrospective Review
of Global Aquaculture,” Nature, 24 March 2021: https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41586-021-03308-6.
73 Rosamund L. Naylor, et al., “A 20 Year Retrospective Review
of Global Aquaculture,” Nature, 24 March 2021: https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41586-021-03308-6.
74 Rosamund L. Naylor, et al., “A 20 Year Retrospective Review
of Global Aquaculture,” Nature, 24 March 2021: https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41586-021-03308-6.
75 Erik Stokstad, “Tomorrow’s Catch: Genomic technologies
promise dramatic gains for aquaculture by accelerating thebreeding of better strains,” Science, 19 November 2020:
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-genetic-tools-will-deliver-improved-farmed-fish-oysters-andshrimp-here-s-what.
76 Mark Kurlansky, “Net loss: the high price of salmon farming,” The Guardian, 15 September 2020: https://www.
theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/15/net-loss-the-highprice-of-salmon-farming.
77 C. Greg Lutz, “The Use of CRISPR in Aquaculture,” The FishSite, 30 September 2021: https://thefishsite.com/articles/
the-use-of-crispr-in-aquaculture-gene-editing-in-fish .

78 C. Greg Lutz, “The Use of CRISPR in Aquaculture,” The FishSite, 30 September 2021: https://thefishsite.com/articles/
the-use-of-crispr-in-aquaculture-gene-editing-in-fish .
79 Erik Stokstad, “Tomorrow’s Catch: Genomic technologies
promise dramatic gains for aquaculture by accelerating thebreeding of better strains,” Science, 19 November 2020:
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-genetic-tools-will-deliver-improved-farmed-fish-oysters-andshrimp-here-s-what.
80 Erik Stokstad, “Tomorrow’s Catch: Genomic technologies
promise dramatic gains for aquaculture by accelerating thebreeding of better strains,” Science, 19 November 2020:
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-genetic-tools-will-deliver-improved-farmed-fish-oysters-andshrimp-here-s-what.
81 Kevin A. Glover, María Quintela, Vidar Wennevik, François
Besnier, Anne G. E. Sørvik, and Øystein Skaala, “Three Decades of Farmed Escapees in the Wild: A Spatio-Temporal
Analysis of Atlantic Salmon Population Genetic Structure
throughout Norway,” PLoS ONE, 15 August 2012: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043129.
82 Mark Kurlansky, “Net loss: the high price of salmon farming,” The Guardian, 15 September 2020: https://www.
theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/15/net-loss-the-highprice-of-salmon-farming.
83 H. Güralp, K.O. Skaftnesmo, E. Kjærner-Semb et al., “Rescueof germ cells in dnd crispant embryos opens the possibility to
produce inherited sterility in Atlantic salmon,” Scientific Reports, 10, 18042, 2020: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-02074876-2.
84 H. Güralp, K.O. Skaftnesmo, E. Kjærner-Semb et al., “Rescueof germ cells in dnd crispant embryos opens the possibility to
produce inherited sterility in Atlantic salmon,” Scientific Reports, 10, 18042, 2020: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-02074876-2.
85 For background, see: ETC Group, “Terminator: The Sequel,” Communique, May/June 2007: https://www.etcgroup.
org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/publication/635/01/etcomm95_tsequel_11june07.pdf .
86 Lisa Abend, “A Sterile Solution: How Crispr Could Protect
Wild Salmon,” Undark Magazine, 07 July 2021: https://undark.
org/2021/07/21/crispr-protect-wild-salmon/ .
87 Rachel Mutter, “First fish from Cermaq’s facial recognition salmon farm ship to market,” IntraFish, 10 February2022:
https://www.intrafish.com/technology/first-fishfrom-cermaqs-facial-recognition-salmon-farm-ship-to-market/2-1-1166184.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Machinery
for big ag
MACHINERY FOR BIG AG refers to manufactured equipment used in agriculture. This
includes, for example, tractors, haying and harvesting machinery and equipmentused for planting, fertilizing, ploughing, cultivating, irrigating and spraying. Today, theworld’s largest farm equipment companies are gearing up to control digital ag technologies and farm data as their number one strategy for expanding market share. Digitalised agriculture implies other machinery used down on the farm – drones, sensors
and devices that run apps, for example – as well as internet connectivity.
Table 1: Sales of the Leading Farm Equipment Companies, 2020
Rank

Company (Headquarters)

1.

Deere & Company (USA)1

2.

Kubota (Japan)

3.

Sales 2020,
US$ millions
22,325% Market Share 2020
17.5

14,14011.0

CNH Industrial (UK/Netherlands)

10,916

8.5

4.

AGCO (USA)4

9,150

7.2

5.

CLAAS (Germany)5

4,609

3.6

6.

Mahindra & Mahindra (India)

2,480

2.0
49.8
1.1

2
3

6

Total Top 6
7.

Iseki (Japan)

63,6201,399

8.

SDF Group (Italy)8

1,307

1.0

9.

Kuhn Group (Switzerland)9

1,164

<1.0

10.

YTO Group (China)10

984

<1.0

Total Top 7 - 10

4,854

<4.1

Total Top 10

68,474<53.9

7

Worldwide Farm Machinery Sales (est.)11
Source: ETC Group, based on company annual reports

127,800

| 70 |
According to the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA)
based in Frankfurt, the worldwide market for agriculture equipment reached
US$128 billion in 2020.
••

The top 4 companies account for 44% of the global ag machinery market.
The top 6 companies account for one half of the global ag machinery
market.

In some regions and countries, farm machinery markets are even more consolidated.
For example:••

In the United States, just three companies – Deere, CNH and AGCO –account for more than 90% of high-horsepower tractor sales.12
Mahindra & Mahindra controls more than 40% of India’s farm equipment market.13

Trends: chew on thisETC finds that the major trends in the industrial ag machinery market
include:• Market Volatility• A Push to Automate• Drive to Digitalize Fuelling Ag Machinery Markets• Continuing Battle over Who Owns and Controls Farm Data
• Drones Take FlightMarket Volatility: A Bumpy Ride
In 2020-21, ag machinery markets experienced pandemic-induced volatility. After the cease fire in the China-U.S. trade dispute resulted in growing
demand for corn and soybeans, US tractor sales revved up by double-digit
percentages.14 In India, Mahindra & Mahindra saw its June 2021 domestic
sales increase by 31% over the previous year,15 and the European Agricultural
Machinery Association reported 25% more tractors registered across Europe
in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.16
But supply chain challenges caused headaches. Big farm machinery manufacturers scrambled to keep up with new orders in 202117 due to depleted inventory, shortages in labour and raw materials (including semiconductors18)
and rising freight costs.19 In May 2021, Deere warned that the chip shortage
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 71 |
posed a significant risk and noted that raw material and freight costs would
double for the year.20 Nevertheless, in August, Deere forecast record net income for 2021, double its 2020 figure.21 Two months later, 10,000 unionized
Deere workers went on strike to protest low wages and inadequate retirement benefits.22
A Push to Automate
Pandemic-induced lockdowns and restrictions on the cross-border movement of migrant workers led to farm labour shortages, giving the ag equipment sector even more incentive to accelerate a long-promised shift to automation. According to global data platform for intelligence on start-ups,
Dealroom, investment in farm robotics/automation start-ups, including vertical and indoor farms, jumped 40% from January to August 2020.23 In 2020,
Kubota unveiled its first completely autonomous tractor – dubbed “thedream tractor”24 – and is now working with start-ups developing technologies for growing/harvesting crops that require a dextrous handling (fruits
such as strawberries, apples, grapes, for example)25 – an area the company
views as especially ripe for automation.
Governments are supporting automation in agriculture, too. In 2020, theU.K. Research and Innovation agency awarded £2.5 million to a consortiumof academic and private sector firms developing the world’s first robotic
farm, dubbed “Robot Highways.”26 The project claims that its autonomoustech will enable a 40% reduction in labour and help move the sector toward
a carbon zero future.27 In Thailand, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives established tech-focused subcommittees on Big Data, Smart Agriculture, E-Commerce and Agribusiness.28 The government also developed“TraceThai,” a national, digitalized traceability system that will start withtracking organic foods.29 Industrial agriculture is notorious for exploitationof farm labour and, contrary to companies’ claims, the current push to automate farm equipment threatens to amplify exploitation by increasing worker
surveillance, pressures to meet inhumane machine-designated targets andthe deskilling of workers.30

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 72 |
Table 2: Selected acquisitions/investments related to automation andprecision farming by Big Ag Machinery corporations (2019-2021)
Farm Machinery Company
Deere & Company

CNH Industrial

CLAAS
AGCO

KubotaMahindra & Mahindra

Acquisition/Investment
Acquired Bear Flag Robotics for US$250 million to develop autonomous tractors; 31
Deere is collaborating with tech start-ups: Nori (carbon offset platform based on
digital recordkeeping), Nvision Ag (data modelling and aerial imaging for corn
farmers to manage nitrogen levels), Scanit (early detection of airborne pathogens),and Teleo (turning existing equipment into remote-controlled robots). 32
Acquired precision agriculture pioneer Raven Industries for US$2.1 billion; 33 holds
minority stake in Augmenta (automates farming operations); 34 minority investment in US-based Monarch Tractors. 35
Holds a minority stake in AgXeed (to build field robots). 36
Precision Planting, LLC (subsidiary of AGCO) acquired Headsight, Inc. (precision
agriculture harvesting); 37 acquired Farm Robotics and Automation S.L (“Faromatics”), a precision livestock farming company. 38
Bought an additional stake in Indian tractor manufacturer Escorts (total 15%); 39
bought stake in Israeli start-up Tevel (flying autonomous fruit-picking robot); 40
collaboration with Aurea Imaging (autonomous orchard and vineyard farming).
Acquired stake in Resson, a predictive data analytics company (other investors
include Monsanto Growth Ventures and McCain Foods); 41 acquired a stake in
Swiss agritech firm Gamaya (hyperspectral imaging, AI and machine learningalgorithms). 42

Drive to Digitalize Fuelling Ag Machinery Markets“We are transforming from a machinery company into a smart
technology company.” – Martin Kremmer, director ETIC, John
Deere European Technology Center43“…[E]nvironmental narratives are legitimizing a digital transition in the food system that might otherwise raise critical questions about issues such as data sovereignty, increased surveillance and corporate control over farming practices.” – Louisa
Prause, Sarah Hackfort and Margit Lindgren writing in Agricultureand Human Value44
For all agriculture sectors – from livestock breeding and ranching to industrial
farming – data is itself a precious commodity, which some have dubbed “thenew soil” and others “the new cash crop.”45 The farm equipment sector is no
exception, and digitalization is driving the growth strategies of all the major
companies.46 (IHS Markit estimates that the global digital farming market
was worth US$5-7 billion in 2020 – less than 5% of the total farm equipment
market – but is forecast to increase to US$15 billion by 2027.47)
With heaps of data on soil quality, weather, input levels – such as seeds, pesticides and fertilizers – farm equipment makers have refashioned themselves
into tech companies.48 Agricultural machinery now also implies drones,
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 73 |
sensors and robots equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and/or machinelearning capabilities to target individual plants or plots, with the promise of“precision” – just the right amount of water or fertilizer or pesticide: goodfor the crop, good for the environment and good for the farmer’s bottom
line, go the claims. Deere & Company now employs more software engineers than mechanical engineers.49
In reality, precision ag’s claims to save time, money and labour stand on shaky
ground due to unequal digital access, a narrow focus on a few commercial
crops, inaccurate GPS systems, sensors and other hardware and software
components – especially algorithms – and the inability of these technologies
to gauge complex farm realities, practices and micro-climates.50“Precision farming” can imply multiple technologies, including:
Robots for weeding,51 fruit and vegetable picking, irrigation, andspraying pesticides;• Drones to scan soil fertility, to monitor crop health, to apply pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and even to plant seeds; 52• Sensors (hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal and LiDAR) that
capture information that may not be visible to the naked eye, suchas soil moisture, plant stress levels, presence of weeds, or pests;• Data analytics to process the gathered data in order to give recommendations on how, where and when to irrigate, apply pesticides and fertilizers;• Satellite imagery to assess yields, crop damage, growth rates; 53• GPS (Global Positioning System) and BeiDou Navigation
Satellite System (BDS) for on-farm navigation of machinery;• Cloud providers, making possible storage and processing ofmassive datasets;• Internet connectivity, which underpins all the other technologies.

Ag machinery companies, together with agrochemical and seed industry
firms, have successfully propelled the narrative that precision agriculture is
the key to productivity, sustainability and climate resilience. Working handin-hand with industry, many national governments, philanthro-capitalists(e.g., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, which has received more than
US$1 billion from the Gates Foundation54) have embraced the drive to digitalize the global South and peasant agriculture.55
Global collaborations, like the Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate(AIM for Climate) launched at the UN’s 2021 Climate Conference (COP26)
by the U.S. and U.A.E., are pushing “climate-smart agriculture,” advocating
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 74 |
for more investments in ag tech and on-farm data collection, and continuing
extractive agriculture.56 Even public sector techno-optimists are endorsing
digital ag for the global South with scant empirical evidence of how thesetechnologies may impact peasant farming communities.57 In her budget
speech for the financial year 2022-23, the Finance Minister of India declaredthat the “use of ‘Kisan Drones’ will be promoted for crop assessment, digitization of land records, spraying of insecticides, and nutrients.”58 In the wordsof researcher Glenn Davis Stone, “there is significant movement towards
surveillance-based, decision-appropriating technologies being developed
and deployed for peasants in the global South.”59
Some academics warn that the ability to “harvest new data sources” frompeasant farmers will amplify the global land grab.60 They explain that theextraction of previously-inaccessible, farm-level micro-data will allow better
assessments of profit potential, thus accelerating land grabs in the global
South.61

Table 3: Selected digital agriculture platforms of farm equipment manufacturers and inter-sector collaborations
Digital Ag Platform
Some components
Interoperability;
Digital Ag
collaborations

Digital Platform
Some components
Digital Ag
Collaborations

Digital Ag Platform
Some components
Collaborations

Deere & Company
Deere Operations Centre (farm management)
JD link (data transfer); John Deere Mobile Weather; Ag Logic (remote work management);
Field and Water Management
U.S. Agency for International Development, Corteva, John Deere and Global Communities
work on precision ag in Zambia; data integration agreement between E-luminate, Golden Harvest’s (Syngenta’s corn and soybean seeds) digital ag platform and Deere Operations Center;62
Deere, CLAAS, CNH Industrial and 365FarmNet formed a data interface project called DataConnect that will enable farmers operating machinery from different cooperating brands toview and exchange machine data;63 partnered with Volocopter to develop an agricultural drone(VoloDrone) for agrochemical spraying
AGCO
Fuse; FendtONE (operating system) by Fendt (AGCO subsidiary)
AGCO Connect (machine focused telemetry software, yield monitoring system; AccuBoom(targeted spraying); Climate FieldView app (agronomy decision and visualization)
AGCO partnership with Climate FieldView; AGCO entered into a collaboration with Robert
Bosch GmbH, BASF Digital Farming and Raven Industries Inc. to work on targeted spraying
technology64
KubotaKSAS (Kubota Smart Agri System), cloud-based agricultural management support service
Plans to include fertilizer application, chemical spraying, and business support system65
Partnered with US Chipmaker Nvidia to develop self-driving farm tractors;66 partnered with
Aurea Imaging for “crop intelligence” for fruit growers;67 Japanese subsidiary of Mahindra &Mahindra collaborated with Kubota for joint IoT solutions, OEM supply arrangements;68 collaborated with Microsoft to shift to its Azure cloud services; part of AGROS, collaboration between
Wageningen University & Research and 26 private partners, including BASF

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 75 |
CLAAS
Digital Ag Platforms CLAAS Connect; 365FarmNet (CLAAS Subsidiary); CLAAS E-Systems (CLAAS Subsidiary)
Some Components CLAAS Telematics, BASF AgSolutions Finder (pesticide measures), Agropressure by Michelin(Components of 365FarmNet)
Collaborations
Bayer, CLAAS collaborate to expand Climate FieldView digital farming platform
CNH Industrial
Digital Ag Platforms AGXTEND
Some components CropXplorer (uses sensors for nitrogen application and other uses); FarmXtend (provides
sensor-based detailed agronomic recommendations); SoilXplorer (soil sensors); NIRXact (Near
Infrared sensors providing recommendations for application)
Collaborations
CNH Industrial partnered with AGCO, Bayer, Jacto, Nokia, Solinftec, TIM and Trimble under
ConectarAGRO to push precision farming in Brazil; CNH Industrial, Accenture and Microsoft
for increasing CNH’s digital capabilities;69 partnered with DroneDeploy to deliver a packaged
deal of a DJI drone/camera and the company’s software for plant health analysis
Mahindra & Mahindra
Digital Ag Platforms Krish-E (India); DigiSense 4G
Some components Soil mapping, drone spraying, pest management
Collaborations
Mahindra & Mahindra’s Japanese subsidiary, Mitsubishi Mahindra Agricultural Machinery
Company and Kubota announced collaboration for Japanese domestic operations

Continuing Battle over Who Owns and Controls Data
The legal ownership of data collected on-farm is murky at best.70 Deere, forexample, has famously argued that when a farmer buys one of the company’s
tractors, they receive a “license to operate the vehicle” but they are not theowner of the equipment, the software embedded in it or the data generated by the equipment.71 By asserting themselves as the ultimate data-owners,
farm equipment manufacturers seek to retain control of a product that itself
has enormous value. This is also evident in the partnerships between the
big agrochemical/seed companies and farm equipment manufacturers (seeTable 3). These collaborations involve the sale or exchange of data, which are
analysed to deliver prescriptions to the farmer – for example, which seeds
to plant on which plot of land or the application rates of other inputs. The
company that controls farm data is positioned to use its farm management
platform to link the farmer to preferred products (i.e., its own and those of
its partners). The immediate goal is to optimize sales on the company’s platform. In the longer term, the ag machinery/tech firms are positioned to further usurp farmer autonomy and decision-making by creating technology
lock-ins. For example, in order to qualify for credit or to meet food safety
standards, farmers could be compelled to adopt particular precision ag technologies and products.72
Additionally – and relatedly – equipment repair services are a profitable revenue stream for farm machinery manufacturers. Companies like Deere say
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 76 |
it’s illegal for farmers or independent technicians to tinker with embedded
software, which is considered proprietary. Equipment repairs are time consuming and costly for farmers, and waiting for a company-approved technician to show up at harvest time can mean tens of thousands of dollars inlost income. The “Right to Repair” movements across the world are fighting against manufacturers like Deere (as well as Apple and Tesla) that wantto prevent farmers/consumers from fixing the products they’ve bought.
Anti-trust researchers believe that Deere’s aggressive attack on the right torepair demonstrates the company’s attempt to monopolise the market for
digital agricultural information.73 In July 2021, the Biden administration took
steps to push back on the manufacturers’ anti-competitive repair restrictionsin the U.S., but the new rules are still being written.74
Drones Take Flight: Bedrock of Digital Ag is in the Sky“I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind…” – from “Eye in the Sky,”
lyrics by Eric Woolfson, Alan Parsons
Cameras and other sensors attached to drones function as the eyes of the digital ag-machine bundle. Sensors can map terrain and capture detailed imagesof farmland, and drones can shoot seeds in the ground and spray chemicals
on crops. In some cases, drones are being used in “precision ranching” totrack cattle and monitor health.75 The leading farm equipment manufacturers
have become drone devotees, especially through collaborations with other,drone-centred companies: Deere & Company has partnered with Volocopter
to develop a drone (VoloDrone) for agrochemical spraying; 76 CNH Industrial teamed up with DroneDeploy to deliver a packaged deal of a DJI drone/
camera plus DroneDeploy software to assess plant health analysis (with thecapability to zoom in to “inches above the plants”); 77 and Kubota has recently invested in fruit-picking drone company Tevel.78
Seeds and agrochemical companies, too – Bayer, Corteva AgriScience and
BASF, for example – are partnering with (mostly private) drone hardware manufacturing companies like DJI (the largest seller that accounts for about 70%of the drone market),79 XAG80 and Delair81 (see Table 4). AGCO manufactures
its own drones while Mahindra & Mahindra is expected to launch ag-drones
soon after getting conditional permission from the Civil Aviation Ministry ofIndia to conduct drone-based agricultural trials and precision spraying on paddy and hot pepper crops in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, respectively.82
Whose ag-drone software will dominate has not yet become clear:
Slantrange,83 Taranis,84 PrecisionHawk,85 FarmLens (owned by AgEagle) andClimate Corporation (owned by Bayer) all sell programs that analyze agricultural data to provide input recommendations to farmers.
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 77 |
Table 4: Partnerships between Drone Manufacturers, Ag Input Companies
and other actors
Drone company

Partnerships

XAG (China)

XAG partnered with Bayer and Alibaba Rural Taobao to form the “Sustainable Farming
Programme” in China focused on digital ag; 86 with Bayer to commercialize digital farming
technology in Southeast Asia & Pakistan (SEAP); 87 with Federal University of Paraná(UFPR), Brazil and Timber to plant trees; 88 with The National Centre for Precision Farming, Harper Adams University, U.K. to develop drones and robotics for UK and European farmers89

AgEagle Aerial
Systems (USA)BASF’s xarvio FIELD MANAGER integrated with AgEagle’s senseFly’s eBee X fixed-wingdrone platform;90 (AgEagle acquired senseFly from Parrot in 202191

DJI (China)

With Syngenta Japan to promote ag drones in Japan;92 CNH Industrial and DroneDeploy sell a packaged deal of a DJI drone/camera plus software for plant health analysis; anagreement with Syngenta Korea to be its sole drone partner, and to promote jointly aerial
pesticide application in South Korea;93 Corteva owns a fleet of 400 DJI drones94
Unsurprisingly, Big Tech has already beefed up its involvement in digital agriculture. Gartner, a technology-focused consultancy, calculates that spending
on cloud services will reach nearly 10% of all corporate spending on information technology in 2021, while Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital firm,
estimates that many tech start-ups already spend 80% of their revenues on
cloud services.95 The proliferation of digital ag companies is a gold mine for
Big Tech, which will sell cloud services to enable massive volumes of agriculture-related data to be stored and processed. BASF96 and Bayer97 use Amazon
Web Services (AWS) to process and analyse data on their digital platforms
while Syngenta, Corteva Agriscience and BASF use Google Cloud services(via their collaborations with DroneDeploy98 and Taranis99). The cloud services market is tightly consolidated: AWS held 41% of the cloud services market in 2020, and the top five cloud service providers accounted for 80% of
the market.100 More than half of Amazon’s operating income comes from
AWS.101

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 78 |
Notes
1
Deere & Company news release, “Deere Reports Net Income of $757 Million for Fourth Quarter, $2.751 Billion forYear,” n.d.: https://s22.q4cdn.com/253594569/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/4Q_2020_News-Release-and-Financials.
pdf, p. 19.
2 Kubota Report 2021: https://www.kubota.com/ir/financial/integrated/data/digest2021_11.pdf.
3 CNH Industrial Annual Report 2020, p. 41: https://www1.
cnhindustrial.com/en-us/investor_relations/financial_information/annual_reports/CNH_Industrial_Annual_EU_
report_2020_final.pdf .
4 AGCO Annual Report, p. 106: https://investors.agcocorp.
com/static-files/dde17fd9-4fca-4bb0-b77a-baf80115f3bd.
5 CLAAS 2020 Annual Report, p. 36: https://www.claas-group.
com/blueprint/servlet/blob/2375836/0bfd21a9e422155e73c2284c9b7ee053/annual-report-2020-data.pdf.
6 Mahindra & Mahindra Integrated Annual Report 2020, p.
282:
https://www.mahindra.com/resources/investor-reports/FY21/Annual-Reports/MM-Annual-Report-2020-21.
pdf.
7 Iseki (Japan) Annual Report, June 2021, p. 5: https://www.
iseki.co.jp/english/csr/report/pdf/iseki_report2021.pdf.
8 SDF Group, Annual Report 2020: https://issuu.com/sdfgroup/docs/sdf_annual_2020_singole_en_issuu .
9 See Kuhn website: https://www.kuhn.com/en/about-kuhn.
10 YTO Group (China), 2020 Annual Report of the First Tractor
Company Ltd, p. 318: https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/
listconews/sehk/2021/0422/2021042200929.pdf.
11 According to the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA), the value of worldwide agriculture equipment sales was US$127.8 billion.
12 High horsepower tractors are used for row crop production, such as corn. See Jacob Bunge and Bob Tita, “Biden
Order Takes Aim at Tractor Repair,” Wall Street Journal,
10 July 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-order-takes-aim-at-tractor-repair-11625914801?st=53rcklwvf55dl4i&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink.
13 Sonia Shenoy and Surabhi Upadhyay, “M&M eyeing pricehike in November; says company’s tractor market shareat 40% plus,” 02 November 2021: https://www.cnbctv18.
com/auto/mm-eyeing-price-hike-in-november-says-companys-tractor-market-share-at-40-plus-11318782.htm .
14 Scott Carpenter, “How Ag Giant John Deere Has Plowed
Through The Pandemic,” Forbes, 26 October 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2020/10/26/johndeere-plows-through-pandemic-on-government-paymentsto-farmers-and-late-crop-price-surge/?sh=7642bdcd3a47 .
15 Mahindra & Mahindra, “Mahindra’s Farm Equipment Sector Sells 46875 Units in India during June 2021,” 01 July 2021:
https://www.mahindra.com/news-room/press-release/mahindras-farm-equipment-sector-sells-46875-units-in-india-during-june-2021 .
16 CEMA press release, “Covid-19 impacts 2020 tractor registrations, first 2021 semester confirms recovery despite
supply chain challenges,” 30 September 2021: https://www.cema-agri.org/images/publications/press_releases/2021-09-30_Economic_Press_Release_Tractor_Registrations_2020_and_1st_semester_2021.pdf .
17 Noah Wicks, “Farm equipment dealers struggle to keep lots
stocked amid supply chain troubles,” Agri-Pulse, 07 July 2021:
https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/16095-farm-equipment-dealers-struggle-to-keep-lots-stocked-due-to-highdemand-supply-chain-issues .

18 IANS, “Ford joins top automakers to halt production due tosemiconductor shortage,” Business Standard, 11 January 2021:
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/
ford-joins-top-automakers-to-halt-production-due-to-semiconductor-shortage-121011100337_1.html .
19 Cindy Wang, Enda Curran, and Bloomberg, “Why the world
supply chain crunch keeps getting worse,” Fortune, 26 August 2021: https://fortune.com/2021/08/26/world-supplychain-crunch-getting-worse-shipping-delta-variant/. “Thecost of sending a container from Asia to Europe is about 10
times higher than in May 2020, while the cost from Shanghai to Los Angeles has grown more than sixfold, according
to the Drewry World Container Index.”
20 Shreyasee Raj and Rajesh Kumar Singh, “Deere raises earnings forecast, flags production risks,” Reuters, 21 May 2021:
https://www.reuters.com/business/deere-raises-forecastprofit-more-than-doubles-equipment-demand-2021-05-21/ .
21 John Deere, “Deere Reports Third Quarter Net Income of$1.667 Billion,” 20 August 2020: https://www.deere.com/
en/our-company/news-and-announcements/news-releases/2021/corporate/third-quarter-earnings/ .
22 The strike ended in November 2021 with a contract approved by Deere and Co. workers but it exposed deteriorating workers’ rights in the U.S. the last decade. See Michael Sainato, “Over 10,000 John Deere workers strike over‘years’ of poor treatment,” 14 October 2021: https://www.
theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/14/john-deere-workers-strike-contract-union.
23 Emiko Terazono, “Farm robots given Covid-19 boost,” Financial Times, 30 August 2020: https://www.ft.com/content/0b394693-137b-40a4-992b-0b742202e4e1 .
24 Kubota news release, “Kubota unveils a ‘dream tractor,’” 15 January 2020: https://www.kubota.com/
news/2020/20200115-1.html .
25 John Seabrook, “The Age of Robot Farmers,” New YorkTimes, 15 April 2019: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/the-age-of-robot-farmers .
26 University of Reading (UK) news release, “Reading role in
the world’s first robotic farm project,” 17 July 2020: https://archive.reading.ac.uk/news-events/2020/July/pr844759.
html
27 University of Reading (UK) news release, “Reading role in
the world’s first robotic farm project,” 17 July 2020: https://archive.reading.ac.uk/news-events/2020/July/pr844759.
html .
28 Pearly Neo, “Thailand’s hi-tech food future: Government
pledges to step up transformation of food and agri sector,”
FoodNavigator Asia, 18 April 2022: https://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Article/2022/04/18/thailand-pledges-to-stepup-transformation-of-food-and-agri-sector .
29 Pearly Neo, “Digitising Thailand’s food chain: National
traceability system to focus on organic products first – government insights,” FoodNavigator Asia, 23 December 2020:
https://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Article/2020/12/23/
Digitising-Thailand-s-food-chain-National-traceability-system-to-focus-on-organic-products-first-government-insights .
30 See, for example: ETC Group, “Did you know that thedigitalization of agriculture could affect farmers’ rights?,”
09 December 2021: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/
did-you-know-digitalization-agriculture-could-affect-farmers-rights.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 79 |
31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38
39

40

41

42

43

Joseph White,” Deere, Bear Flag aim to automate tractors
as ‘fast as possible,’” Reuters, 06 August 2021: https://www.
reuters.com/technology/deere-bear-flag-aim-automatetractors-fast-possible-2021-08-05/ .
PR Newswire, “Deere adds new companies to its 2021 Startup Collaborator program,” 27 January 2021: https://www.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/deere-adds-new-companies-to-its-2021-startup-collaborator-program-301216232.
html .
CNH Industrial, “CNH Industrial to acquire Raven Industries, enhancing precision agriculture capabilities and scale,”
21 June 2021: https://media.cnhindustrial.com/EUROPE/
CNH-INDUSTRIAL-CORPORATE/cnh-industrial-to-acquire-raven-industries--enhancing-precision-agriculture-capabilities-and-scale/s/8cd082be-4e36-44f0-a6ea-bfe89774
0e79 .
Anthony James, “CNH Industrial takes stake in Augmenta to offer intelligent crop spraying,” Food and Farming
Technology, 26 March 2021: https://www.foodandfarmingtechnology.com/news/agricultural-machiner y/
cnh-industrial-takes-stake-in-augmenta-to-offer-intelligent-crop-spraying.html .
CNH Industrial, “CNH Industrial completes minority investment in Monarch Tractor,” 02 March 2021: https://
media.cnhindustrial.com/EUROPE/CNH-INDUSTRIAL-CORPORATE/cnh-industrial-completes-minority-investment-in-monarch-tractor/s/65225ee6-b1a5-4f56-84fe13c7986dbd64 .
CLAAS Group, “CLAAS cooperates with start-up AgXeed
and acquires minority shareholding,” 12 May 2021: https://www.claas-group.com/press-corporate-communications/press-releases/claas-cooperates-with-start-up-agxeed-and-acquires-minority-shareholding/2483284 .
AGCO, “Precision Planting Agrees To Acquire HeadsightBusiness,” 04 August 2021: https://news.agcocorp.com/
news/precision-planting-agrees-to-acquire-headsight-business .
https://news.agcocorp.com/news/agco-acquires-faromatics-a-precision-livestock-farming-company .
Press Trust of India, “Kubota Corp to acquire additional
5.9% stake in Escorts for Rs 1,873 crore,”18 November 2021:
https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/
kubota-corp-to-acquire-additional-5-9-stake-in-escorts-forrs-1-873-crore-121111800645_1.html
Kubota, “Kubota Invests In Tevel, The Leader Of Flying
Autonomous Fruit-Picking Robots,” n.d.: https://ke.kubota-eu.com/blog/news/kubota-invests-in-tevel-the-leader-of-flying-autonomous-fruit-picking-robots/#agriculture
Resson, “Mahindra & Mahindra Joins McCain Foods andMonsanto Growth Ventures As Strategic Partners in New
Brunswick-Based Resson,” 8 May 2018: https://www.
mccain.com/information-centre/news/mahindra-mahindra-joins-mccain-foods-as-strategic-partners-in-new-brunswick-based-resson/ .
Mahindra, “Mahindra enters into Strategic Alliance with
Switzerland-based Gamaya,”14 June 2019: https://www.
mahindra.com/news-room/press-release/mahindra-enters-into-strategic-alliance-with-switzerland-based-gamaya
Laurie Bedord, “John Deere Transforming From A Machinery Company To A Smart Technology Company,” Successful
Farming, 11 October 2019: https://www.agriculture.com/
news/technology/john-deere-unveils-farm-of-the-future .

44 Louisa Prause, Sarah Hackfort and Margit Lindgren, “Digitalization and the third food regime,” Agriculture and Human
Values (2021): https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10161-2 .
45 Alistair Fraser, “Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture
and its new horizons,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019: DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2017.1415887 .
46 Esri & The Science of Where Podcast, “John Deere: How
Data Science Drives Business Growth,” 24 January 2020:
https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/podcast/johndeere-how-data-science-drives-business-growth/ .
47 IHS Markit, “Digital Farming and Robotics 2021,” 2021. See
https://ihsmarkit.com/info/0821/digital-farming-robotics-2021.html .
48 Scott Carpenter, “Access To Big Data Turns Farm Machine Makers Into Tech Firms,” Forbes, 31 December 2020:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/12/31/
access-to-big-data-turns-farm-machine-makers-into-techfirms/?sh=73afbfbe7e47 .
49 Nilay Patel, “John Deere Turned Tractors into Computers— What’s Next? CTO Jahmy Hindman on farming, data,
and right to repair,” The Verge, 15 June 2021: https://www.
theverge.com/22533735/john-deere-cto-hindman-decoderinterview-right-to-repair-tractors .
50 Oane Visser, Sarah Ruth Sippel, Louis Thiemann, “Imprecision farming? Examining the (in)accuracy and risks of digital
agriculture,” Journal of Rural Studies, 28 July 2020: https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.07.024 .
51 Donna Lu, “Robot with pincers can detect and remove
weeds without harming crops,” New Scientist, 29 April 2020:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2241741-robot-withpincers-can-detect-and-remove-weeds-without-harmingcrops/ .
52 See, for example, DroneSeed, a re-forestation start-up:
https://droneseed.com/#about-us.
53 Nick Measures, “How satellite imagery is helping precision
agriculture grow to new heights,” Eco-Business, 02 March 2021:
https://www.eco-business.com/news/how-satellite-imagery-is-helping-precision-agriculture-grow-to-new-heights/ .
54 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation news release, “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Pledges $315 million to Support Innovations That Help Smallholder Farmers Adapt to Climate
Threats,” 02 November 2021:
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2021/11/gates-foundation-pledges-315-million-smallholder-farmers-cgiar-climate-change .
55 ETC Group, “Did you know that the digitalization of agriculture could affect farmers’ rights?,” 09 Dec 2021: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/did-you-know-digitalization-agriculture-could-affect-farmers-rights. See also: Glenn
Davis Stone, “Surveillance agriculture and peasant autonomy,” Journal of Agrarian Change, 2022, pages 1–24: https://doi.
org/10.1111/joac.12470.
56 AIM for Climate is supported by 41 countries and more than
100 entities including Big Ag companies, universities, andcorporate-linked entities. See AIM for Climate website:
https://www.aimforclimate.org/. See also, ETC Group, “Asbig oil states plan to promote energy-hungry agtech as a ‘climate solution’ at COP26, it’s time to question their AIM,”
28 October 2021: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/bigoil-states-plan-promote-energy-hungry-agtech-climatesolution-cop26-its-time-question .
57 Glenn Davis Stone, “Surveillance agriculture and peasantautonomy,” Journal of Agrarian Change, 2022, pp. 1–24: https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12470.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 80 |
58 In India, Kisan refers to a farmer. See, Government of India,“Budget 2022-2023 Speech of Nirmala Sitharaman Ministerof Finance,” 01 February 2022: https://www.indiabudget.
gov.in/doc/budget_speech.pdf .
59 Glenn Davis Stone, “Surveillance agriculture and peasantautonomy,” Journal of Agrarian Change, 2022, pp. 1–24: https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12470.
60 Alistair Fraser, “Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture
and its new horizons,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019:
46:5, 893-912, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2017.1415887 .
61 Alistair Fraser, “Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture
and its new horizons,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019:
46:5, 893-912, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2017.1415887.
62 PR Newswire, “Golden Harvest connects with John Deere
Operations Center for farmer-focused data integration,” 27August 2019: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/
golden-harvest-connects-with-john-deere-operations-center-for-farmer-focused-data-integration-300907996.html .
63 John Deere, “John Deere, CLAAS, CNH Industrial and
365FarmNet form DataConnect,” 05 November 2019:https://www.deere.com/en/our-company/news-and-announcements/news-releases/2019/agriculture/2019nov05-dataconnect/ .
64 Anonymous, “AGCO, Raven, Bosch and BASF Digital Solutions Form Targeted Spraying Technology Collaboration,”
Farm Equipment, 28 May 2021: https://www.farm-equipment.
com/articles/19413-agco-raven-bosch-and-basf-digital-solutions-form-targeted-spraying-technology-collaboration .
65 Kubota, “Kubota Smart Agri System,”: https://www.kubota.com/innovation/smartagri/index.html
66 Kosuke Toshi, “Kubota taps Nvidia tech for smart-farming
autonomous tractors,” Nikkei Asia, 07 October 2020: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Kubota-taps-Nvidiatech-for-smart-farming-autonomous-tractors .
67 Kubota, “Kubota And Aurea Imaging Partner To Drive Autonomous Orchard Innovations,” 24 April 2020: https://ke.kubota-eu.com/blog/news/strategic-partnership-announcement-kubota-and-aurea-imaging-partner-to-drive-autonomous-orchard-innovations/#agriculture .
68 Anonymous, “M&M’s Japan subsidiary collaborates with
Kubota,” Hindu Business Line, 31 March 2021: https://www.
thehindubusinessline.com/companies/mms-japan-subsidiary-collaborates-with-kubota/article34205864.ece .
69 Accenture, “CNH Industrial, Accenture and Microsoft
Collaborate to Develop Connected Industrial Vehicles,” 01
December 2020: https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/
cnh-industrial-accenture-and-microsoft-collaborate-to-develop-connected-industrial-vehicles.htm .
70 Scott Carpenter, “Access To Big Data Turns Farm Machine Makers Into Tech Firms,” Forbes, 31 December 2020:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/12/31/
access-to-big-data-turns-farm-machine-makers-into-techfirms/?sh=73afbfbe7e47. Several studies and/or surveys focus on concerns that farmers have about sharing data. See,for example, Jody L. Ferris, “Data Privacy and Protection in
the Agriculture Industry: Is Federal Regulation Necessary?”
The Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Vol.18, Issue 1,
2017, pp. 309-342, especially pp. 315-317. Available at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mjlst/vol18/iss1/6 .
71 See Kyle Wiens, “We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the
Very Idea of Ownership,” Wired, 21 April 2015: https://www.
wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ .

72 Louisa Prause, Sarah Hackfort and Margit Lindgren, “Digitalization and the third food regime,” Agriculture and Human
Values (2021): https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10161-2
73 Kathleen Day, “Monopoly Power: Are new antitrust measures needed to restore competitive balance?” CQ Researcher,
03 December 2021: https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2021120300 .
74 Kyle Wiens, “The Biden administration thinks you shouldbe allowed to fix the things you buy,” Washington Post,
13 July 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/13/biden-ftc-right-to-repair/ .
75 See DJI’s website: https://enterprise.dji.com/news/detail/dji-drones-adopted-for-precision-ranching .
76 Darrell Etherington, “Volocopter and John Deere team up fora crop-spraying autonomous agricultural drone,” TechCrunch,
07 November 2019: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/07/
volocopter-and-john-deere-team-up-for-a-crop-sprayingautonomous-agricultural-drone/ .
77 Anonymous, “DroneDeploy Selected by CNH Industrial for
Intuitive New Drone System Targeting Ag Customers,” Techcrunch, 16 February 2017: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/
dronedeploy-selected-cnh-industrial-intuitive-170000134.
html .
78 Kuboto blog, “Kubota invests in Tevel, the leader of flying
autonomous fruit-picking robots,” n. d.: https://ke.kubota-eu.com/blog/news/kubota-invests-in-tevel-the-leader-of-flying-autonomous-fruit-picking-robots/#agriculture.
79 DJI Agriculture, “Cooperative Upgrade! DJI Agriculture Signs
a Smart Agriculture Partnership Agreement with Syngenta Japan,” 10 October 2019: https://ag.dji.com/newsroom/dji-ag-news-en-cooperative. See also, David Benowitz, “Corteva
Deploys Largest Ag Drone Fleet in the World,” DJI Enterprise, 25
February 2019: https://enterprise-insights.dji.com/user-stories/
corteva-deploys-largest-ag-drone-fleet-in-the-world .
80 XAG, “Bayer and XAG collaborate to bring digital farming
technology to smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia & Pakistan,” 19 March 2020: https://www.xa.com/en/news/official/xag/77 .
81 BASF, “Delair and BASF collaborate to accelerate research for
agricultural solutions,” 17 March 2020: https://www.basf.com/
global/en/media/news-releases/2020/03/p-20-144.html .
82 Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India, “Conditional exemption from Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)
Rules, 2021 to Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) Ltd. for conducting drone-based agricultural trials and precision spraying on paddy and hot pepper crop in the state of Telangana
and Andhra Pradesh respectively,” 13 August 2021: https://www.civilaviation.gov.in/sites/default/files/Conditional-exemption-to-Mahindra-and-Mahindra-for-drone-operations-13-Aug-2021.pdf .
83 Muthukumar Kumar, “Helping farmers move from analog
to digital farming with drones and remote sensing,” Geoawesomeness, 15 January 2019: https://geoawesomeness.com/
helping-farmers-move-from-analog-to-digital-farmingwith-drones-and-remote-sensing/ .
84 ADAMA, “ADAMA and Taranis Collaborate to Offer Farmers
End-to-End Precision Agriculture Solution,” 12 September
2019: https://www.adama.com/en/449/adama-and-taranis-collaborate-to-offer-farmers-end-to-end-precision-agriculture-solution.
85 PrecisionHawk, “We’ve closed $75 million of funding—here’s how we’ll use it,” 24 January 2018: https://www.
precisionhawk.com/blog/media/topic/weved-closed-75million-funding-heres-well-use

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 81 |
86 XAG News, “Bayer × XAG × Alibaba Rural Taobao Jointly
Unveil ‘Sustainable Farming Programme’,” 28 June 2018:https://www.xa.com/en/news/official/xag/14 .
87 Bayer press release, “Bayer and XAG collaborate to bring
digital farming technology to smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia & Pakistan,” 26 February 2020: https://media.
bayer.com/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/Bayer-XAG-collaborate-bring-digital-farming-technology-smallholder-farmers-Southeast-Asia-Pakistan .
88 XAG News, “Brazil Introduces Agricultural Drones from
XAG to Plant Trees,” 29 January 2022: https://www.xa.com/
en/news/official/xag/150 .
89 XAG News, “XAG & Harper Adams University Developed
Strategic Partnership in the UK,” 09 July 2018: https://www.
xa.com/en/news/official/xag/16 .
90 senseFly news release, “xarvio Digital Farming Solutions by
BASF Selects eBee X Fixed-Wing Drones for Digital CropManagement in Brazil,” 29 October 2019: https://www.
sensefly.com/2019/10/29/xarvio-digital-farming-solutionsbasf-selects-ebee-x-fixed-wing-drones/ .
91 Tracy Cozzens, “UAV company AgEagle to acquire senseFly
from Parrot,” 19 October 2021: https://www.gpsworld.com/
uav-company-ageagle-to-acquire-sensefly-from-parrot/ .
92 DJI Brand News, “Cooperative Upgrade! DJI Agriculture
Signs a Smart Agriculture Partnership Agreement with Syngenta Japan,” 10 October 2019: https://ag.dji.com/newsroom/dji-ag-news-en-cooperative .
93 DJI Brand News, “Further Cooperative Upgrade! DJI Agriculture Signs an Exclusive Agreement with Syngenta Korea,” 20 February 2020: https://ag.dji.com/newsroom/djiag-news-syngenta-korea .

94 David Benowitz, “Corteva Agriscience Deploys 400+ DJI
Drones and DroneDeploy Software,” 25 February 2019:https://enterprise-insights.dji.com/user-stories/corteva-deploys-largest-ag-drone-fleet-in-the-world .
95 Anon., “The battle of the computing clouds is intensifying,”
The Economist, 18 December 2021: https://www.economist.
com/business/the-battle-of-the-computing-clouds-is-intensifying/21806813
96 Thomas Schilling of BASF quoted on AWS website, “BASF
Digital Farming Enables Hyper-Localized Decision-Making on AWS,” n. d.: https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/basf-digital-farming/.
97 Peri Subrahmanya, “Bayer Crop Science Drives Innovationin Precision Agriculture Using AWS IoT,” n. d.: https://aws.
amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/bayer-cropscience/ .
98 SADA website, “SADA helps DroneDeploy take flight with
Google Cloud,” n. d.: https://sada.com/insights/customer-story/sada-helps-dronedeploy-take-flight-with-googlecloud/ .
99 Google Cloud website, “Taranis: Helping farmers to feed
the planet with cutting-edge drone imaging and AI,” n. d.:https://cloud.google.com/customers/taranis.
100 Gartner press release, “Gartner Says Worldwide IaaS Public
Cloud Services Market Grew 40.7% in 2020,” 28 June 2021:
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021-06-28-gartner-says-worldwide-iaas-public-cloudservices-market-grew-40-7-percent-in-2020 .
101 Jordan Novet, “Amazon cloud revenue growth accelerates
to 37% in Q2,” CNBC, 29 July 2021: https://www.cnbc.
com/2021/07/29/aws-earnings-q2-2021.html .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

AnimalpharmaAnimal Pharma The animal pharmaceutical industry (also known as the animal
health industry) sells commercial products for livestock productivity/health andcompanion animal (pet) health, including medicines and vaccines, diagnostics,
medical devices, nutritional supplements, veterinary and other related services.
This sector does not include livestock feed and pet food products (although insome cases it may include medicated feed additives).
Leading Companies by Animal Pharmaceutical Sales, 2020
Animal Health Sales,$US millions
6,675
4,703

% global market share
19.7
13.9

Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health (Germany)3
Elanco (USA) + Bayer Animal Health (UK)4

4,699
4,400
pro forma

13.9
13.0

Total Top 4
IDEXX Laboratories (USA)5
Ceva Santé Animale (France)6

20,4772,532
1,344[2019]

60.5
7.6
4.0

Total Top 6
Virbac (France)7

24,353
1,065
661

72.1
3.2
2.0

527
524

1.6
1.6

27,13080.5

Rank

Company / Headquarters

1.
2.

Zoetis (USA)1
Merck & Co. (USA)2

3.
4.

5.
6.

7.
8.
9.
10.

Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC (UK)8
Phibro Animal Health Corporation (USA)9
Kyoritsu Seiyaku Corporation (Japan)10
Total Top 10
Total World Animal Pharma Market

11

ETC Group research, based on company reporting

33,800| 83 |
According to Vetnosis, total worldwide animal pharma sales
reached US$33.8 billion in 2020.12

The top four firms control 60.5% of the global animal pharmaceutical market.
The top six firms control 72% of the global animal pharmaceutical market.
The top four animal pharma companies are subsidiaries or spin-offs of theworld’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Zoetis is a spin-off of Pfizer;
Elanco, now independent, was a spawn of Eli Lilly; Boehringer Ingelheim
Animal Health and Merck Animal Health are subsidiaries of their respective parent companies.

Trends: chew on thisETC finds that:
•
•

•

•

The animal pharmaceutical industry continues to consolidate.
The pet-related market is driving industry growth; leading
firms are competing to take a bigger bite of the “companion animal” sector.
In both the companion animal and industrial livestock
sectors, big data and digital services are targets of recent
mergers and acquisitions.
The animal pharma industry is embracing digital technologies – especially digital diagnostics/analytics, remote monitoring and identification/tracing services, and online vet
services.

Dog-Eat-Dog Consolidation: In August 2020, Elanco completed its
US$6.9 billion acquisition of Bayer Animal Health. In June 2021 Elanco announced its intention to acquire Kindred Biosciences, with the expectationthat it will deliver a blockbuster drug for the billion-dollar pet dermatology
market. In 2021, the world’s leading vet pharma firm, Zoetis, announced it
would acquire Jurox, an Australia-based animal health company.
Gone to the Dogs: Globally, the animal pharma industry derives an estimated 59% of its market from the food animal sector and 41% from companion animal products/services.13 Nevertheless, the “humanisation of pets” isdriving the largest share of growth in the animal pharma industry – a trend
that’s accelerating during the global pandemic.14

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 84 |The global market for the animal pharma industry was almost US$34 billion
in 2020, but US pet owners alone spent nearly three times that amount – arecord US$104 billion – on pet-related expenses in 2020 (ranging from food,toys, grooming and daycare, to vet-related services).15 In China, pet ownership increased by 300% from 2013 to 2019, and the pet economy shot up
400% during the same period.16 Another barometer of the surge in the pet
economy is that 2021 saw 44 mergers and acquisitions in the pet food industry worldwide, a 75% jump over the previous year.17 Once unimaginableproducts and services (e.g., dating apps for pooches, pet massage treatments
and doggie ice cream treats) are just the tip of the tail, and that’s precisely
why the animal pharmaceutical industry is rapidly diversifying beyond the
traditional boundaries of drugs and medical vet services.
Beyond Therapeutics: Animal pharma giants seek to become the onestop-corporate-shop for pets and livestock health needs. They may not own
the vet (yet), but these firms are competing to develop new revenue streams– beyond therapeutic products. The same company that sells animal meds
and vaccines may now offer online subscription services for routine medicalcare and veterinary services; it may sell direct-to-consumer pet insurance or
own the veterinary clinic and the diagnostic lab that determines what meds
your animal needs. Ownership of all of these – and a growing suite of proprietary, high-tech, digital tools that analyze/diagnose and monitor animal
health and industrial livestock performance – are rapidly consolidating in thehands of animal pharma leaders. Recent investments by the world’s largest
animal pharma firms tell the story:In April 2019 Merck Animal Health acquired Antelliq, a company focusing
on digital identification, traceability and monitoring of livestock, for US$2.4
billion. The self-described leader in “animal health intelligence and data expertise,” Merck has since established a separate business unit for its smart
data products/services for animal ID, monitoring and traceability of livestock, fish and pets. Among Merck’s recent data-driven acquisitions:• Sure Petcare, a suite of pet technology products that monitor the
day-to-day activities of pets (feeding, sleeping, exercising) to indicate
when a pet may need special care. Merck’s Sure Petcare offers veterinary hospitals a commission for each online sale that results from thevet’s recommendation of select Sure Petcare products.18• Poultry Sense Limited, maker of digital tools to monitor and assess parameters of industrial flocks such as weight, water usage, humidity,
light, temperature and carbon dioxide levels.19• New Zealand-based Livestock Improvement Corporation Ltd (LICA)
that specialises in automation and technology for dairy herds (i.e.,
milk-testing sensors that measure fat, protein, somatic cell counts, lactose, conductivity, and volume while a cow is being milked).20• IdentiGEN, a company that specialises in DNA-based animal traceability for livestock and aquaculture;
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 85 |••

Vaki, maker of real-time video monitoring for industrial fish farming;
Quantified Ag, a data and analytics company that monitors cattle bodytemperature and movement in order to detect illness.

In 2020, Zoetis, the world’s largest animal health care company, launched
a new pet insurance unit dubbed Pumpkin,21 a direct-to-consumer pet careand pet insurance company that enables customers in the U.S. “to make data-informed care decisions based upon their individual pet’s health needs.”22
Animal pharma isn’t the only industrial food and ag sector droolingover the rapidly expanding market for pets. Mars, Inc., the world’s
sixth largest food and beverage processor, now makes more revenue
from pet food and veterinary clinics/hospitals than it does from its
chocolate candy bars and human food products. In 2017 Mars spent
US$7.7 billion to acquire VCA, a company that owns about 800 animal hospitals and vet lab businesses, and dog day-care franchises.
Mars has since expanded its stable of veterinary businesses with acquisitions in Japan, Brazil and Europe23 and owns more than 2,500 vet
businesses globally.24 Private equity firm IVC became Europe’s largest
vet care provider with a buying spree of more than 1,500 veterinary
practices – once considered a “cottage industry” in many countries.25•

Zoetis has invested more than US$2 billion since 2018 to acquire veterinary diagnostics (equipment as well as regional laboratories).26 The
ownership of veterinary labs in the U.S. is now tightly concentrated in
the hands of three giant firms, with “relatively nothing left to acquire,”according to industry analysts.27•

In 2020, Zoetis acquired cattle management software company Performance Livestock Analytics to help industrial feedlots analyze cattle feed
efficiencies, evaluate costs and performance, and monitor health of individual animals.

•

In early 2021, Boehringer Ingelheim announced the creation of Pawru,
Inc. as a separate entity within the company’s animal health portfolio to
expand its digital platform, including a mobile app that links pet owners
with veterinarians for telemedicine appointments, prescription refills,
messaging, pet health care content and more.28

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 86 |
Notes
1
Zoetis 2020 Annual Report, p. 2: https://s1.q4cdn.com/446597350/
files/doc_financials/2020/ar/Zoetis-2020-Annual-Report.pdf .
2 Merck & Co. news release, “Merck Announces Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2020 Financial Results,” 4 February 2021:
https://www.merck.com/news/merck-announces-fourthquarter-and-full-year-2020-financial-results/.
3 Boehringer-Ingelheim Annual Report 2020, p. 36: https://annualreport.boehringer-ingelheim.com/2021/downloads/archiv/
bi_ar_2020_en.pdf.
4 Elanco 2020 Annual Report, p. 10: https://s1.q4cdn.
com/466533431/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/2020-Annual-Report_Elanco_vf-00.pdf . Note: Although Elanco reported US$3,300 million in 2020 sales, the company’s annual report, p. 10, states: “Revenue for the combined company
was $4.4B, assuming a full year of Bayer Animal Health revenue and excluding divestitures for both companies.”
5 IDEXX 2020 Annual Report, Revenue by Operating Segment,
p. 49: https://www.idexx.com/files/2020-idexx-annual-report.pdf . Note: Our figure for IDEXX 2020 revenue does
not include revenue from the Water (testing) segment andOther segment.
6 Revenue figure is from 2019. Ceva Sante Animale news release, “Ceva returns to strong double-digit growth in 2019and reveals plans to double sales by 2025,” 12 March 2020:
https://www.pig333.com/company_news/ceva-sawstrong-double-digit-growth-in-2019-now-plans-to-double-sales_15925/ . The private company changed its shareholding structure in 2020 and new figures have not beenreleased.
7 See Virbac website: https://corporate.virbac.com/home/
discover-virbac/about-virbac.html. 2020 sales = €934 million.
8 Dechra Pharmaceuticals 2021 Annual Report [FY ending 30 June2020], p. 2. Annual report available here: https://www.
dechra.com/investors/financial-reports-and-presentations.
2020 sales = £515.1 million.
9 Phibro Animal Health Corporation news release, “Phibro
Animal Health Corporation Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year Results, Provides Financial Guidance,” 25 August
2021: https://investors.pahc.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2021/Phibro-Animal-Health-Corporation-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-Year-Results-Provides-Financial-Guidance/default.aspx . Sales figure is for FY ending
30 June 2020.
10 Kyoritsu Seiyaku web site, annual revenue figure is fromMay 2020: https://www.kyoritsuseiyaku.co.jp/en/about/financial.html .
11 The statistic is found on the website of Health for Animals,
an industry trade group representing the animal health sector: https://www.healthforanimals.org/about/our-sector/.
12 The Vetnosis estimate for 2020 appears here: https://www.
healthforanimals.org/about/our-sector/. Vetnosis provides
commercial intelligence for the animal health industry.
13 According to the website of Health for Animals, the international industry association: https://www.healthforanimals.
org/about/our-sector/. The statistics for the world market
for veterinary medicines and animal health products for theyear 2020 come from Vetnosis, a market intelligence firm.

14 Zoetis 2020 Annual Report, p. 2: https://s1.q4cdn.
com/446597350/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/Zoetis-2020-Annual-Report.pdf .
15 American Pet Industry Association website, “Pet Industry
Market Size, Trends & Ownership Statistics,” 24 March
2021: https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp
16 Chris Miller, The Extraordinary Rise of China’s Pet Industry,
China Business Review, 4 June 2021: https://chinabusinessreview.com/the-extraordinary-rise-of-chinas-pet-industry/.
17 Tim Wall, “44 pet food industry mergers and acquisitions
2021,” PetFoodIndustry.com, 27 December 2021: https://www.
petfoodindustry.com/articles/10916-44-pet-food-industry-mergers-and-acquisitions-2021?v=preview.
18 Merck Animal Health, “Sure Petcare Announces New
Program for Veterinary Practices Opportunity to Increase
Revenue,” 26 March 2021: https://www.merck-animal-health-usa.com/newsroom/sure-petcare-announces-new-program-for-veterinary-practices-opportunity-to-increase-revenue.
19 Merck Animal Health, “Proprietary Technology Enhances
Health and Environmental Monitoring Solutions for Poultry Producers,” 25 February 2021: https://www.merck.com/
news/merck-animal-health-completes-acquisition-of-poultry-sense-limited/.
20 Merck Animal Health, “MSD Animal Health to Acquire Assets of LIC Automation Ltd.,” 7 June 2021: https://www.
merck.com/news/msd-animal-health-to-acquire-assets-oflic-automation-ltd/ .
21 Manas Mishra and Saumya Joseph, “Animal health leader Zoetis steps into pet insurance,” Reuters, 30 April 2020:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zoetis-pet-insurance/animal-health-leader-zoetis-steps-into-pet-insurance-idUSKBN22C22U.
22 Zoetis news release, “Innovative New Pet Health Startup, Pumpkin Insurance Services, Launches in the U.S.,”30 April 2020: https://www.businesswire.com/news/
home/20200430005460/en/Innovative-New-Pet-HealthStart-up-Pumpkin-Insurance-Services-Launches-in-the-U.S.
23 Ross Kelly and Edie Lau, “Mars expands its international veterinary practice ownership,” VIN News, 27 September 2019:https://news.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&Id=9297861.
24 Ross Kelly, “Pandemic hastens ongoing trend in veterinary
consolidation,” VIN News, 30 December 2021: https://news.
vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&catId=612&Id=10652228.
25 Judith Evans and Kaye Wiggins, “Going to the vet: what
happens when private equity invests in a cottage industry,” Financial Times, 20 April 2021: https://www.ft.com/content/9a825fe8-8ea5-4ef3-84b7-2529bfe5ffed .
26 Jennifer Fiala, “Zoetis’ splurge on veterinary labs meetsrocky transition,” VIN News, 7 October 2021: https://news.
vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&catId=621&Id=10504884.
27 Jennifer Fiala, “Zoetis’ splurge on veterinary labs meetsrocky transition,” VIN News, 7 October 2021: https://news.
vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&catId=621&Id=10504884.
28 Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health news release, “Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health USA Establishes Pawru,
Inc.,” 16 Feb 2021: https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.us/press-release/boehringer-ingelheim-animal-health-usa-establishes-pawru-inc.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Agriculturalcommodity trading
Agricultural Commodity Traders are diversified firms that produce, procure, process, transport, finance and trade grains, food, fibre, meat, livestock, sugar, etc. on a
global scale. They are involved in all phases of production and trade, from origination1
to processing, marketing, financial instruments, risk management and distribution.
The colossal firms that control global commodity trading are among the most powerful and least-transparent companies in the industrial food chain. The total valueof global agricultural commodity markets is difficult to estimate because much of
the information is proprietary and supply chains are opaque: three of the world’s
top-ranking ag commodity traders are privately held, and one is state-owned.
Sales of the Leading Agricultural Commodity Traders, 2020
Rank

Company

1.

Cargill (USA)2
Private2.

COFCO Corp
(China) Stateowned

3.

Archer Daniels
Midland (ADM)(USA)5
Public2020 Sales, US$million
134,000

105,000
pro forma
71,8003(COFCOGroup)+
33,000(COFCO Intl)4
64,000Company Profile
Largest privately held company in the U.S.; presence in 70 countries,
155,000 employees. Producer, distributor, processor, transporter ofagricultural products including sugar, oils, grain, chocolate and meat andplant-based protein, as well as financial management.
In 2021, state-owned COFCO Corp (China National Cereals, Oils andFoodstuff) announced plans to merge its international trading division(COFCO Intl, Switzerland, 60% owned by COFCO Corp) with its
domestic agribusinesses to create a new Chinese-owned commodity
trading firm. In 2020, COFCO handled over 130Mt* of ag commodities.
COFCO’s core business is grain, edible oil, sugar and cotton, processing
capacity of 90Mt/year and an annual port transit capacity of 65Mt. In
China alone, COFCO has processing capacity of more than 60Mt. *Seenote below this table for definiton of Mt.
The world’s largest corn processor and diversified oilseed business,
ADM procures crops from 449 locations, 32 feed and food processing
operations, with 39,000+ employees. In 2020, ADM handled 54Mt
of processed corn and oilseeds. Since 1994, ADM has partnered with
Wilmar (#4) and holds a 22% stake in Wilmar.

| 88 |
4.

Wilmar(Singapore)6
Public50,5305.

Bunge (USA)8
Public41,4006.

Itochu (Japan)9Public35,908

7.

Louis Dreyfus(Netherlands)12
Private33,6008.

Viterra Group(Netherlands)13
Private28,1149.

Olam International(Singapore)14
Public24,701

10.

Conagra (USA)17
Public11,054Self-described as Asia’s leading agribusiness group; Wilmar’s agribusinessincludes cultivation, milling, processing of palm oil and sugarcane;edible food products; animal feeds and industrial agri-products (e.g.,
oleochemicals and biodiesel). Operates more than 500 manufacturing
plants throughout China, India, Indonesia and around 50 othercountries, and has around 100,000 employees. Kuok Group (Malaysia)
and ADM (USA) are major investors in Wilmar.7
Major oilseed processor and producer of specialty plant-based oils andfats. More than 23,000 employees; 350 facilities located in more than 40
countries. Traded 160Mt of ag commodities in 2020.
With operations in 62 countries, Itochu trades in textile, machinery,
metals, minerals, energy, chemicals, food, real estate, information andcommunications technology, and finance.10 Ag commodities and foodaccount for approximately 38% of the company’s revenues.11
Louis Dreyfus’ business covers the entire agriculture and food value
chain, and operates in more than 100 countries, with 17,000 employees.
In 2020, Dreyfus sold a 45% stake in the company to a state-owned
holding company in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) managing
US$110 billion in assets. The sale included a long-term pact to ship foodto the U.A.E.
Glencore Agriculture changed its name to Viterra in 2020. The trading
firm is a strategic partnership between Swiss-based Glencore (49.9%
ownership), CPP Investments (Canada) and British Columbia Investment
Management Corporation (Canada). Viterra operates across 180 storage
facilities, 31 processing facilities and 25 ports, with a shipping fleet and rail
assets in strategic locations worldwide; 16,000+ employees, operates in
37 countries.
Olam ranks among the 30 largest primary listed companies on the
Singapore Exchange (based on market capitalisation).15 With more than
81,000+ employees globally and operations in more than 60 countries,
Olam’s businesses include nuts, spices, dairy, coffee, cocoa, grains, animal
feed and protein, edible oils, rice, cotton and financial services.16
Self-described as one of North America’s leading branded foodcompanies; Conagra’s businesses include grocery and snacks,
refrigerated and frozen food products, branded food products soldinternationally, food services that include branded and customized foodproducts.

Source: ETC Group, from company reporting.
*Note: Weights in the table are expressed in megatonnes (Mt). One Mt is one million metric tonnes, or one billion
kilograms.

Together, the leading global food and ag commodity traders piled up morethan one-half trillion dollars in 2020 revenues. Global trade in all agricultural products reached an estimated US$1.33 trillion in 2019.18 The top ten ag commodity traders account for at least 40% of the global market. (However, theleading companies’ market share, taking into account major grain crops andfeedstuffs only, would be far greater.)

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 89 |

Trends: chew on thisETC finds:
•
•
•
•
•

Market volatility: Big Ag’s commodity boom bonanzaConsolidation continues
Food security for sale
Traders jump on the blockchain bandwagon
Dangerous liaisonsMarket Volatility: Big Ag’s Commodity Boom Bonanza
In 2020, market volatility and soaring demand for grains, oilseeds and meat
meant turbo-charged profits for most of the world’s leading ag commodity traders. Industry analysts describe Big Ag’s commodity trading boom asa “mini-supercycle” – that is, a period where commodity prices rise above
their long-term price trend – a cycle that could continue for the next 2-4
years.19 China is driving the worldwide demand for grain. In an effort to rebuild its pork production after a devastating outbreak of African Swine Fever,China was forecast to import 26 million metric tonnes of corn in the 20202021 season, up more than 240% from the previous year.20
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 90 |In its 2021 Annual Report, Cargill – the world’s titanic agricultural commodity
trader – describes the challenges of the past pandemic year as “unprecedented, historic and unforgettable,” and “nothing short of extraordinary.”21 Extraordinary, perhaps, because in the midst of a global pandemic, deepening
hunger crisis and supply chain gridlock, Cargill posted the biggest profits in
its 156-year history – up 64%.22 The optics of record-breaking profits amid
global chaos may be one reason that privately-owned Cargill discreetly announced in 2020 that it will no longer make its financial results public.23

Consolidation Continues with Chinese Ag Trading Dynasty: In March
2021, state-owned COFCO Corp, China’s largest food company, announcedplans to merge its international trading division, COFCO International (based in
Switzerland), with its China-based agribusinesses to create a new, super-sized
Chinese-owned commodity trading dynasty.24 The Chinese merger creates a
trading behemoth that will be second only to Cargill in global agricultural commodity sales, approaching over US$100 billion in revenue per annum (see table).
Food Security for Sale: In November 2020, a family heir to Louis Dreyfus
Company sold a whopping 45% stake of the firm to a state-owned holding
company in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.),25 a move that starkly
illustrates the geopolitics of global grain trading amidst climate chaos. As
part of the deal, Louis Dreyfus enters a long-term pact to supply agricultural
goods to the U.A.E. and marks the first time in the private company’s 170year history for ownership to extend beyond the family. The U.A.E. currently
imports over 90% of its food supply. As one industry analyst told the WallStreet Journal, “…they have the oil but what they don’t have is the foodstuff.”26

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 91 |The mass privatisation and financialisation of land (foreign control of productive farmland) is not new. Global land grabs are increasingly well-documented thanks to civil society organizations such as GRAIN and others.27 The saleof 45% of one of the world’s largest commodity firms, Louis Dreyfus, to asovereign state signals a new era of “agro-security mercantilism.”28 Cash-richcountries are positioning to climate-proof food security via offshore foodproduction with little consideration for sustainability or the notion of regional food self-reliance. The Louis Dreyfus-U.A.E. deal suggests that climate
chaos and supply chain uncertainty may accelerate efforts by cash-rich states
to secure strategic food reserves via equity investments in Big Ag companies.
Teaming Up on the Blockchain Bandwagon
Six of the world’s largest commodity firms (Cargill, ADM, COFCO, Bunge,
Louis Dreyfus, Viterra) have joined forces to create a new digital platform
called Covantis (a blockchain-powered digital ledger system) that was officially launched in March 2021.29 The Covantis blockchain aims to digitalize
and automate global agricultural shipping transactions; it will initially cover
exports of corn and soybeans from Brazil before expanding to global trading
operations. The six commodity giants that jointly own Covantis (based in
Geneva) claim that the technology will streamline global trade transactions,increase transparency and security.
The private blockchain is a members-only business network. Although Covantis membership includes, by necessity, additional players in the global
commodity shipping operations, the governance of Covantis is tightly controlled by its six corporate founders. The Board of Directors consists of one
member from each of the six giant commodity trading companies, and theBoard is chaired by one of the Directors (to be rotated annually).30
According to Covantis, its blockchain is about “unlocking value through collaboration” and “removal of information silos.”31 But not everyone is sanguine about the prospect of competing firms that operate in an already oligopolistic market teaming up on a private blockchain.
Dangerous Liaisons? Legal scholars point out that, in highly consolidated
markets, private blockchain technology could be used to engage in anticompetitive practices.32 With a distributed ledger shared by competing firms, eachfirm has access to everyone else’s transaction data, such as prices and quantities. Some kinds of data sharing (e.g., price) could foster collusion such as
price-fixing and bid-rigging. In this scenario, “competitors that form or participate in blockchain ventures might use price, cost, or out-put data to enter into
unlawful horizontal agreements.”33 It is also possible that participating firms
could exclude others from access to the blockchain, impeding competition.
Other observers point out that blockchain technology, in theory, is designed
to build trust among participants by increasing transparency; it eliminates
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 92 |
top-down control, and thus fosters decentralization of the economy.34 With
the appropriate regulatory policies, they argue, antitrust regulators would
have an easier time monitoring transactions on a blockchain, and proof ofcollusion would be easier to document. It is also worth noting that blockchains, once thought “unhackable,” have been breached and are vulnerable
to cybercrime.35
Ultimately, cartel-like behaviour in oligopoly markets does not depend on
blockchain technology. The world’s largest global commodity trading firms
are no strangers to anti-competitive practices.36 For example, in 1996, Archer
Daniels Midland paid a US$100 million fine after pleading guilty to price-fixing of food ingredients.37 In 2004, Cargill agreed to settle for US$24 million ina lawsuit that accused the company of conspiring with two other companies(Archer Daniels Midland and A.E. Staley) to fix prices of high fructose cornsyrup.38 The tip of the iceberg? Antitrust experts estimate that, in the postWorld War II era, the percentage of detected cartels is only between 10% and33%.39In 2018, Switzerland-based Public Eye published an in-depth study of commodity trading firms. It notes that the risk of tax dodging and corruption ishigh within agricultural production and trading firms, and that human rights
violations are endemic, including forced and child labour, and occupational
health and safety hazards.40

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 93 |
Notes
1
Origination refers to the complex logistics of sourcing/acquiring a commodity, getting it to a port, loading it on a vessel and transporting it to a destination for marketing.
2 Figure is for FY 2021 (01 June 2020-31 May 2021). Cargill 2021 Annual Report, p. 2: https://www.cargill.com/
doc/1432194192294/2021-cargill-annual-report.pdf .
3 Anon., “COFCO merger set to create agribusiness giant,”
Oils & Fats International, 5 April 2021: https://www.ofimagazine.com/news/cofco-merger-set-to-create-agribusiness-giant .
4 COFCO fact sheet: https://www.cofcointernational.com/
media/1919/cof_fact-sheet_en_2021-06.pdf.
5 ADM, Investor Overview Handout, First Quarter 2021: https://
s1.q4cdn.com/365366812/files/doc_presentation/2021/03/
ADM-Investor-Overview-Handout-2021-Q1.pdf.
6 Wilmar International news release, “Wilmar reports higher
net profit of US$924 million for 2H2020 and US$1.53 billion
for FY2020,” 22 February 2021: https://www.wilmar-international.com/docs/default-source/default-document-library/highlights/mediareleases/2021/wilmar_fy2020_financial_results_news_release.pdf?sfvrsn=2f1af5c6_0.
7 ADM news release, “ADM Completes Previously Announced Secondary Block Trade of a Portion of Wilmar
Ownership,” 23 August 2020:
https://investors.adm.com/news/news-details/2020/
ADM-Completes-Previously-Announced-Secondary-BlockTrade-of-a-Portion-of-Wilmar-Ownership/default.aspx.
8 Bunge 2020 Annual Report, p. 25: https://investors.bunge.com/
sites/bungeltd-ir/files/2020ar.pdf.
9 FY ended 31 March 2021. Itochu, Financial Section 2021, p. 14:
https://www.itochu.co.jp/en/files/ar2021E_FS.pdf .
10 See Itochu website: https://www.itochu.co.jp/en/about/profile/index.html .
11 Itochu, Financial Section 2021, p. 16: https://www.itochu.co.jp/
en/files/ar2021E_FS.pdf .
12 LDC news release, “Louis Dreyfus Company Reports
Strong 2020 Financial Results,” 25 March 2021: https://www.ldc.com/press-releases/louis-dreyfus-company-reports-strong-2020-financial-results/ .
13 Viterra, Viterra Limited Annual Report 2020, p. 2: https://www.viterra.com/dam/jcr:5e692425-6bda-4cbe-98bc8d394e62750a/Annual-report-2020-.pdf .
14 Olam, Olam Annual Report 2020, p. 6: https://www.olamgroup.com/content/dam/olamgroup/investor-relations/
ir-library/annual-reports/annual-reports-pdfs/2020/olam_annual_report_2020.pdf . Olam Food Ingredients (OFI)
comprises five businesses: Nuts, Spices, Dairy, Coffee andCocoa; Olam Global Agri (OGA) comprises five businesses:
Grains and Animal Feed & Protein, Edible Oils, Rice, Cotton,
and Commodity Financial Services (CFS).
15 See Olam website: https://www.olamgroup.com/investors.html.
16 Olam Annual Report 2020, p. 3: https://www.olamgroup.
com/content/dam/olamgroup/investor-relations/ir-library/
annual-reports/annual-reports-pdfs/2020/olam_annual_report_2020.pdf .
17 Conagra Brands, Annual Report 2020, p. 27: https://materials.
proxyvote.com/default.aspx?docHostID=438736 .
18 Christophe Bellmann, Bernice Lee, and Jonathan Hepburn,Delivering Sustainable Food and Land Use Systems: The Role of International Trade, Hoffmann Centre for Sustainable Resource
Economy, September 2019: https://www.foodandlanduse-

19
20

21
22

23
24

25
26
27

28

29

30

31

32

coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Trade-andFood-Systems-Hoffmann-Centre.pdf.
Emiko Terazono, “Agricultural traders see signs of ‘supercycle’,” Financial Times, 18 June 2021: https://www.ft.com/content/b9551dfb-cabb-40aa-bd02-5b1fff3afb64.
Javier Blas and Michael Hirtzer, “Cargill Heads to Record Profit on Booming Agriculture Market,” Bloomberg,
24 May 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-24/cargill-heads-to-record-profits-on-booming-agricultural-markets.
Cargill 2021 Annual Report, p. 2. https://www.cargill.com/
doc/1432194192294/2021-cargill-annual-report.pdf.
Figure is for Cargill’s 2021 FY ending 31 May 2021. Javier Blas,“Crop Giant Cargill Reports Biggest Profit in 156-Year History,” Bloomberg, 6 August 2021: https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2021-08-06/crop-giant-cargill-reportsbiggest-profit-in-156-year-history .
Javier Blas and Michael Hirtzer, “Cargill Heads to Record
Profit on Booming Agriculture Market,” Bloomberg, 24 May
2021.
Isis Almeida, Javier Blas, Andy Hoffman and Alfred Cang,“China Plans New Food-Trading Giant With Cofco Merger and IPO,” Bloomberg, 15 March 2021: https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-15/china-plansnew-food-trading-giant-with-cofco-merger-and-ipo .
Joe Wallace, “Agricultural Giant Louis Dreyfus to Sell Major
Stake to Abu Dhabi State Firm,” Wall Street Journal, 11 November 2020.
Joe Wallace, “Agricultural Giant Louis Dreyfus to Sell Major Stake to Abu Dhabi State Firm,” Wall Street Journal, 11 Nov
2020.
An epidemic of global land grabs to secure fertile farmland
was triggered by soaring food prices and food shortages in
2008, as investors, speculators and agribusiness and biofuel corporations rushed to rent, buy or appropriate land inmany of the world’s poorest countries. See, for example:
GRAIN, “Digital fences: the financial enclosure of farmlands
in South America,” 21 September 2020.
https://grain.org/en/article/6529-digital-fences-the-financial-enclosure-of-farmlands-in-south-america.
The term was first coined by Philip McMichael. See: Philip McMichael, “Land Grabbing as Security Mercantilism in International Relations,” Globalizations, 2013: DOI:
10.1080/14747731.2013.760925.
Anonymous, “Cargill, ADM backed commodities blockchain Covantis goes live,” Ledger Insights, 25 February 2021:
https://www.ledgerinsights.com/cargill-adm-backed-commodities-agribusiness-blockchain-covantis-live/.
Covantis news release, “Covantis launches as legal entity,
announces CEO and executive appointments,” 31 March2020:
https://covantis.io/press-release/covantis-launches-legal-entity.
Covantis news release, “Covantis launches as legal entity,
announces CEO and executive appointments,” 31 March2020:
https://covantis.io/press-release/covantis-launches-legal-entity.
Thibault Schrepel, “Collusion by Blockchain and SmartContracts,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 14 January
2019: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3315182 . “Blockchain
and Competition Policy” was the topic of an OECD policy
roundtable in 2018: https://www.oecd.org/competition/
blockchain-and-competition-policy.htm.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 94 |
33 Almudena Arcelus, Mihran Yenikomshian, Noemi Nocera,“Mitigating Antitrust Concerns When Competitors Share
Data Using Blockchain Technology,” Harvard Journal of Law
and Technology, 07 March 2021: https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/
digest/category/?cat=commentary.
34 Thibault Schrepel and Vitalik Buterin, “Blockchain Code as
Antitrust,” Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 18 May 2020: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3597399 .
35 Mike Orcutt, “Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are
now getting hacked,” MIT Technology Review, 19 February 2019:https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/02/19/239592/
once-hailed-as-unhackable-blockchains-are-now-gettinghacked/.
36 See, for example, Joshua Schneyer, “Commodity Traders:
The trillion dollar club,” Reuters, 28 October 2011: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-commodities-houses/corrected-commodity-traders-the-trillion-dollar-club-idUSTRE79R4S320111028 .

37 Sharon Walsh, “ADM To Pay $100 Million To Settle Price-Fixing Case,” Washington Post, 15 October 1996: https://www.
washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/10/15/adm-topay-100-million-to-settle-price-fixing-case/95671342-94e0492f-a439-4e8c19a74398/ .
38 Anonymous, “Company News; Cargill to Pay $24 Million to
Settle Class-Action Suit,” New York Times via Reuters, 12 March2004:
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/12/business/company-news-cargill-to-pay-24-million-to-settle-class-action-suit.html.
39 Thibault Schrepel, “Collusion by Blockchain and Smart Contracts,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 14 January 2019:http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3315182 .
40 Thomas Braunschweig, Alice Kohli, Silvie Lang, “Agricultural
Commodity Traders in Switzerland – Benefitting from Misery?,” Public Eye Report, Switzerland, June 2019: https://www.
publiceye.ch/fileadmin/doc/Agrarrohstoffe/2019_PublicEye_Agricultural-Commodity-Traders-in-Switzerland_Report.pdf.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Big meat& protein
Big Meat/Protein The corporate meatpacking industry involves the slaughtering,processing, packaging and distribution of animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep,chickens, fish and other livestock. Increasingly, the industrial meat sector is also
linked to the production of “alternative proteins” – i.e., high-protein foods processed from plants, insects, fungi, or via cell-culture or fermentation (synthetic
biology) techniques – aimed at replacing or co-existing with conventional animaland fish-based proteins on the market.
World’s Leading Meat Companies, 2020
Company (HQ)2020 Food Sales,
US$ Millions

2019 Food Sales,
US$ Millions

1.

JBS (Brazil)

50,69048,795 (Dec. 2019)2.

Tyson Foods (USA)43,18542,405 (Dec. 2019)3.

Cargill (USA)32,37531,700 (May 2019)4.

Smithfield Foods / WH Group (China)

24,463

23,346 (Dec. 2019)5.

Marfrig (Brazil)

13,107

12,658 (Dec. 2019)

6.

NH Foods (Japan)

10,655

10,878 (Mar. 2020)

7.

Hormel Foods Group (USA)9,608

9,497 (Oct. 2019)

8.

Danish Crown (Netherlands)

9,294

8,472 (Sep. 2019)9.

BRF (Brazil)

7,664

8,490 (Dec. 2019)10.

Vion (Netherlands)

5,588

5,629 (Dec. 2019)

Source: Food Engineering Magazine, September 20211

| 96 |
Estimates of the value of the global market for meat can vary widely – fromwell below US$1 trillion to more than US$2 trillion2 making calculating market share especially fraught. However, country-level and sector-level studies
reveal high levels of concentration. In the U.S., for example, a recent Biden
administration briefing states that “just four firms control approximately 5585% of the market for [beef, pork, chicken].”3 In Brazil, just three companies
account for well over two-thirds of all beef exports (and those same threecompanies dominate the domestic market).4

Trends: chew on thisEven with a global pandemic injecting volatility into markets and disruption into supply chains, the trends ETC Group identified in late2019’s Plate Tech-tonics still hold:•••

Big Meat fattens up via mergers and acquisitions (M&As) andmuscles into alternative proteins, including aquaculture.
Climate chaos threatens profits…but meatpackers keep
finding a way.
Meat is still dirty business with “regular” instances of contamination, corruption and worker injuries/death.

Since ETC Group’s 2019 survey (based on 2018 revenues), the meat sector
as a whole has faced daunting challenges: due to a lack of safety protocols,
thousands of slaughterhouse workers got sick with Covid-19 – hundreds
died in the USA5 – forcing temporary plant shut-downs; 6 though the pandemic increased consumer demand for beef on grocery shelves, shutdowns
created backlogs at feedlots, which lowered prices for live cattle; 7 worsening
drought spanning all of North America forced ranchers to sell off cows at“fire sale” prices; 8 a high-profile ransomware hack of JBS, the world’s largest
meat processor and Brazil’s largest company by revenue, led to temporaryplant shutdowns in Australia and USA (the company paid US$11 million in
bitcoin ransom); 9 a 2019 outbreak of African Swine Fever in China decimated the country’s pork production (and continues to threaten it),10 while thespectre of avian flu continually hangs over the industrial poultry sector, withoutbreaks reported in nine Indian states, and in other countries, in 2021.11
Then there’s the “regular” pollution, corruption and contamination-related
recalls associated with the sector.
Big Meat bulks up. Meatpackers must really be hurting, you might think.
But think again: seven of the Big 10 posted higher food revenues in 2020
compared to pre-pandemic revenues,12 and even where sales sagged, profits
soared.13 (It was the ranchers and feedlot operators who suffered financially;
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 97 |
slaughterhouse workers suffered most – financially and physically.) Despite
the pandemic, the biggest meat-exporting countries (i.e. Brazil, U.S., Canada, Russia, European Union countries and Mexico) shipped more meat in2020 than they had in 2019.14
And after a brief lull, M&As regained momentum:• In August 2021 Cargill (#3) and Continental Grain Company announced they’re teaming up to buy U.S.-based Sanderson Farms for
US$4.53 billion; they plan to merge it with Continental Grain’s poultry-processor subsidiary, Wayne Farms. Sanderson is the third largest poultry processor in the U.S.
• On a perpetual buying spree, it seems, Brazil’s JBS (#1) dove into theseafood sector with a bid for Huon Aquaculture, Australia’s second-largest salmon producer. (The US$313.5 million acquisition hasn’t
been finalized as of this writing.)• JBS dug deeper into the “plant-based space” in 2021, buying Vivera,
a Netherlands-based meat substitute (soy and wheat) company, for
US$408.1 million. JBS already owns Planterra Foods, an alt-protein
subsidiary launched in the U.S. in 2020.
• JBS also announced plans to buy the 20% of U.S. poultry producer
Pilgrim’s Pride it doesn’t already own – just after Pilgrim’s Pride announced its plan to acquire Ireland-based Kerry Group’s Meats andMeals business for almost a billion dollars. (That deal was finalized in
September 2021.)• And JBS isn’t done: the company made a US$175 million bid for Australia’s Rivalea, which accounts for 26% of the country’s pork processing. Australia’s Competition Commission expressed some “concerns,”15 but ultimately approved the deal.16 JBS is already Australia’s
largest beef processor.
• Through its subsidiary JBS USA, JBS bought US-based meat processor Empire Packing Company for US$238 million in 2020.
• Brazil’s other meat giant, Marfrig (#5), is buying a 33% stake in BRF(#9), Brazil’s second largest poultry producer (behind JBS). Competition authorities greenlighted that deal in September 2021.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 98 |•WH Group (#4), the world’s largest pork producer, battled African
Swine Fever in its home country (China) – while company executives
battled each other17 – but it still managed to acquire US-based Edelmann Provision Company, specializing in pork sausage, in 2020,
and – via WH’s subsidiary Smithfield Foods – it bought Mecom
Group, a Central European processed (packaged) meat company, in
2021. (Details of those deals were not disclosed.)

Big Meat turns to small (fake) meat. Big Meat companies are generally
agnostic about plant-based and other alternative proteins. If there’s money
to be made, they’re all for it. They aren’t leaving the farm, but they’re enticed
by the prospect of fewer animal welfare, worker safety and environmental
downsides compared to the conventional protein chain. And, in some cases,
they may find a new revenue stream for other commodities they sell (e.g.,
Cargill sells both meat and grains). Their alt-protein activities could earn themsome green “cred” and maybe some carbon credits along the way. While Big
Meat companies have a modest stake in the development of alternative proteins, some governments in the Middle East – such as Israel, Qatar and United Arab Emirates – view alt-proteins as a potential route to food security.18
Each of the top 10 meat companies has its own alternative protein line
(e.g., Smithfield’s Pure Farmland plant-based meat; Danish Crown’s
Tulip brand alt-bacon), is developing alt-protein products with collaborators (e.g., Marfrig and ADM’s joint venture called PlantPlus
Foods; NH Foods’ joint venture with Japan’s IntegriCulture Inc. toproduce cell-cultured beef) and / or is investing in alt-protein startups(e.g., BRF’s investment in Aleph Farms’ cell-cultured beef).

From Wonder Bread to wonder meat: A century-old familiarity
with ultra-processed foods has primed the pump of market acceptancefor alternative proteins. Despite the questions of cost and health, mostconsumers already accept that fish protein can be “sticks” and chicken can be extruded, blended to homogeneity and formed into shapes
collectively known as “nuggets.” Animal protein “analogues” – including “bleeding” burgers derived from soy and fungi-based “steaks”– go beyond the 20th century’s convenience and fast foods (and wellbeyond that quintessential and humble alt-protein offering, the beanburger). The proposition remains the same, however: in a kind of alchemy, food engineering technologies can turn one substance intoanother substance, which then has the potential to turn a bigger profit
for its sellers.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 99 |The Good Food Institute (GFI) – an international lobby group – is the goto resource for bullish projections of alt-proteins’ success. GFI identified a record US$3.1 billion in investments in alternative proteins in 2020, three times
the amount identified in 2019.19 GFI divides the sector into three categories: 1)
plant-based substitutes (think of the old-school “bean burger” and the more“advanced” ultra-processed pea protein); 2) “meat” produced via cell-culture technologies, most often starting with animal stem cells with fetal calf
serum as the growth medium; and 3) alt-proteins produced via fermentation,
including “precision fermentation” (i.e., synthetic biology), which requires
engineering microorganisms to produce specific “functional ingredients”
such as flavours, enzymes and proteins. (The three categories can overlap;
ETC Group has referred to proteins derived from cell-culture and synthetic
biology as “petri-proteins.”20) To date, there are almost 800 companies in GFI’s
database,21 and – by a wide margin – the majority are producing plant-based
meat substitutes. Using data from Crunchbase22 and company press releases,
ETC Group compiled the following table to show a sampling of small alt-protein companies involved with Big Protein (and/or Big Ag) companies that areinvesting or otherwise collaborating.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 100 |Sampling of Alt-Protein Companies and their Big Meat/Big Ag Partners
Company (HQ) PublicTechnology / Productor Private

2020 Revenue /Funding Raised
US$ Millions
236.4
Funding

Aleph Farms(Israel)PrivateCow cell-cultured protein

Upside Foods(formerly
MemphisMeats) (USA)PrivateCow, chicken, duck cell-cultured protein

206
FundingNature’s Fynd
(USA)

Private508
Funding

Beyond Meat
(USA)

PublicImpossible
Foods (USA)PrivateENOUGH (UK)PrivateFermented microbial (fungi)
protein producing mycelial
biomass for generic alt-protein
Plant-based proteins frompea, mung bean, faba bean
and rice as substitutes forchicken, cow, pig
Plant-based proteins fromsoy and potato as substitutes
for chicken, cow, pig; “cow”
and “pig” products containsoy leghemoglobin (“heme”)
produced using GMO yeast
Fermented microbial (fungi)
protein producing mycelial
biomass for generic alt-protein

Mirai Foods(Switzerland)

PrivateCow cell-cultured protein

4.5
Funding

Future Meat
Technologies(Israel)PrivateCow and chicken cell-cultured 40.8
proteinFundingGood Catch(subsidiary ofGathered Foods,
USA)

PrivatePlant-based proteins frompeas, lentils, chickpeas, soy,fava beans and navy beans as
substitutes for fish

Shiok Meats(Singapore)

PrivateShrimp cell-cultured protein

Involvement of Big Protein/Big Ag?
Investments by BRF, Cargill,
Thai Union Group (world’s
largest canned tuna processor)
Investments by Cargill Ventures, Cargill, Tyson Ventures,
Continental Grain Co.

406.8
Revenue

Investments by Archer Daniels
Midland Co., ADM Ventures,
Danone Manifesto Venture[Investment by Tyson Ventures,
pre-IPO]

1,600
Funding

Investment by Continental
Grain Co.

78.1
Funding

77.1
Funding

Investment by SHV Holdings(parent of Nutreco, animal/fish
feed company); collaboration
with Cargill to provide grain forfeedstock; Unilever will buy its
alt-protein.
Investment by PINC, venturearm of Paulig Group (Finnish
food and beverage co.)Investment by Archer Daniels
Midland Co.; ADM Ventures;
Tyson Ventures; Rich Products
Corp (frozen foods); Rich Products Ventures; Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller (dairy,
packaged foods); research
partnership with Nestlé23
Investment by Louis Dreyfus
Co.

20.4
Funding

Vinh Hoan (aquaculture,
Vietnam)

Sources: ETC Group; Crunchbase (https://www.crunchbase.com )Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 101 |Animal protein still prime choice. The world’s biggest meat companies’
investment in developing alternative proteins demonstrates their interestin the profit potential, while backing from some governments may reflect
hope that alt-proteins can contribute to food security. But so-called meat analogues are not on the verge of replacing animal protein; they aren’t evenmaking a dent. That’s partly because consumption of animal protein is increasing around the world – in spite of the explosion of plant-based options
already on the market. FAO predicts global consumption of animal protein
will increase 14% by 2030 over current, already unprecedented levels.24 (Ofcourse, plant-based proteins can be unsustainable, too, especially when ingredients come from monoculture, pesticide-intensive crops supplied byindustrial ag giants like Cargill and ADM.25) Another reason animal protein
reigns supreme is that the technology to produce the “meatiest” fake meat
– petri-proteins grown in the lab from animal stem cells – is technologicallychallenging to scale up and it’s energy intensive. Two important articles –first from Tom Philpott at Mother Jones;26 and another by Joe Fassler in The
Counter27 – pour cold water on the notion that “cell-cultured” protein production can be scaled up significantly in a sustainable way any time soon.
It’s a problem that the issue has been framed – technologically, environmentally, financially and socially – as a means of finding a way to “have our meatand eat it, too.” The environmental, health and climate costs of plentiful andcheap industrial meat aren’t going away. Key problems include:
Big Meat plays a leading role in climate change. Here’s how:
• Destruction of the Amazon rainforest reached a 12-year high in 2020,28
with illegal clearing/burning to create grazing areas for cattle the major culprit.29 Brazil’s biggest meat companies – JBS, Marfrig and BRF –pledged more than a decade ago not to buy cattle from suppliers who
illegally allow cows to graze in protected areas of the Amazon, but“cattle laundering” is rampant: companies claim that tracking cows
from birth to grazing to fattening to slaughterhouse is too difficult(even though they’ve been offered – and have rebuffed – a free digital
tool to help with monitoring).30• A study published in Nature Food in September 2021 found that animal-based foods are responsible for 57% of agricultural greenhousegas (GHG) emissions, 34% of which are associated with cattle farming(i.e., beef and dairy).31 In Brazil, bovine digestion is responsible for an
estimated 70% of the country’s agricultural GHG emissions.32
Big Meat is turning green? Companies big and small have committed
to cleaning up their act and are declaring net zero targets to curb climatechange (i.e., they are making commitments to emit no more GHGs thanthey “capture,” at some point in the future). Tyson says it’ll get there in 2050;
Smithfield (WH Group) aims to be carbon negative in 2030; and JBS is targeting net zero by 2040. Given Big Meat’s outsized contribution to GHGs in
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 102 |the atmosphere, companies will need to reverse course fast (and will likely
require creative carbon-footprint calculators). In mid-2021, JBS publicly committed to spend US$100 million on R&D related to “regenerative agriculture”
projects by 2030.33 It sounds like a serious effort – until you realize that’s
about one third the amount JBS and its owners were forced to pay in fines
in 2020 after pleading guilty to an extensive bribery scheme that helped thecompany become a dominant player in the U.S. protein market.34
Big Meat’s big downsides. Net-zero targets focused on GHG emissions
don’t address Big Meat’s other big failings – namely, significant groundwatercontamination and risks to worker-safety. Livestock farming (and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, specifically) produces lots ofanimal waste, usually stored in lagoons that can – and do – fail at containment.35 How much waste? As an example, it would take 168 million people toproduce the amount of waste produced by the confined livestock in the US
heartland state of Iowa; that’s 53 times the state’s current (human) population.36
Even in the absence of a global pandemic, big meat is risky for workers. Almost 10 years ago, meat processing line speed was identified as meatpackers’“sacred cow…uncompromising high speed is not an occasional problem.
It’s permanent. It’s inherent. And it’s non-negotiable.”37 Musculoskeletal disorders and illnesses from exposure to hazardous substances (e.g., ammonia,
animal feces and blood) are common among workers; 38 Covid-19 proved particularly deadly.39 But line speed also compromises food safety, which harms
meat-eating consumers. With worrying regularity, food safety inspectors incountries around the world alert the public via internet postings to product-recalls due to the presence of pathogens or foreign materials or unlabelled allergens. When Big Meat’s products are involved, the numbers canbe staggering, like Tyson Foods’ recent recall of 8.5 million pounds (3.9 millionkg) of chicken due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes bacterium, which causes listeriosis, a potentially life-threatening disease.40

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 103 |Notes
1Casey Laughman, “The 2021 Top 100 Food and Beverage Companies,” Food Engineering Magazine, 27 August 2021:
https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/99594the-2021-top-100-food-and-beverage-companies.
2 Both estimates come from industry intelligence reports soldby Research and Markets (​​https://www.researchandmarkets.
com/): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/globalmeat-products-market-report-2021-covid-19-impact-and-recovery-forecast-to-2025--2030-301244469.html and https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210920005477/en/
Global-Meat-Markets-2021-2025-by-Product-Chicken-BeefMutton-Pork-and-Others-Type-Raw-and-Processed---ResearchAndMarkets.com ; the lower figure refers to “[t]heglobal meat products market” and the higher figure refers to“[g]lobal meat market.” It is not clear from the two reports’descriptions how their methodologies differ, and the highcosts of the reports prevent ETC Group from clarifying.
3 Brian Deese, Sameera Fazili, Bharat Ramamurti, “Addressing Concentration in the Meat-Processing Industry to Lower Food Prices for American Families,” U.S. White House
briefing, 08 September 2021: https://www.whitehouse.
gov/briefing-room/blog/2021/09/08/addressing-concentration-in-the-meat-processing-industry-to-lower-food-prices-for-american-families/ .
4 Erasmus K. H. J. zu Ermgassen, Javier Godar, Michael J.
Lathuillière, Pernilla Löfgren, Toby Gardner, André Vasconcelos, Patrick Meyfroidt, “The origin, supply chain, and deforestation risk of Brazil’s beef exports,” PNAS, 117 (50), 15
December 2020, pp. 31770-31779: https://doi.org/10.1073/
pnas.2003270117 .
5 Kimberly Kindy, “More than 200 meat plant workers in the
U.S. have died of covid-19. Federal regulators just issued
two modest fines.” Washington Post, 13 September 2020:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/osha-covidmeat-plant-fines/2020/09/13/1dca3e14-f395-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html .
6 Taylor Telford and Kimberly Kindy, “As they rushed to maintain U.S. meat supply, big processors saw plants become
covid-19 hot spots, worker illnesses spike,” Washington Post,
25 April 2020: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/25/meat-workers-safety-jbs-smithfield-tyson/.
7 Julie Creswell, “Your Steak Is More Expensive, but Cattle Ranchers Are Missing Out,” New York Times, 23 June 2021: https://www.
nytimes.com/2021/06/23/business/beef-prices.html .
8 Rod Nickel and Tom Polansek, “Drought forces North
American ranchers to sell off their future,” Reuters, 03 September 2021: https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/drought-forces-north-american-rancherssell-off-their-future-2021-09-03/ .
9 Jacob Bunge, “JBS Paid $11 Million to Resolve Ransomware
Attack,” Wall Street Journal, 09 June 2021: https://www.wsj.
com/articles/jbs-paid-11-million-to-resolve-ransomware-attack-11623280781 .
10 Anon., “African swine fever is spreading rapidly in China, again,” Economist, 28 August 2021, accessible on 21
August 2022 from this page: https://www.economist.
com/taxonomy/term/76972/Last%20of%20the%20commies?page=2696 .
11 Jackie Linden, “Five Asian states record new cases of avian flu in poultry,” WATTpoultry.com, 29 September 2021:
https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/43656-five-asianstates-record-new-cases-of-avian-flu-in-poultry .

12

13

14
15

16

17

18

19

20
21
22
23
24
25

BRF, Vion and NH Foods attributed their modest revenue
declines to Covid-related declines in restaurant-eating,which weren’t entirely offset by high beef prices and increases in grocery shopping for home-cooking.
Anon., “Vion Invests in supply chain and plant based meat,”fleischwirtschaft.com, 25 March 2021: https://english.
fleischwirtschaft.de/economy/news/vion-invests-in-supplychain-and-plant-based-meat-50183; see also Tom Polansek,“U.S. senators scrutinize meat packers’ big profits during
pandemic,” Reuters, 30 March 2020: https://www.reuters.
com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-meatpacking/u-s-senators-scrutinize-meat-packers-big-profits-during-pandemicidUSKBN21H38M; Nayara Figueiredo and Ana Mano, “Brazil’s JBS profit bolstered by weak currency, strong Chineseand U.S. markets,” Reuters, 24 March 2021: https://www.
reuters.com/article/jbs-results-idAFL1N2LM3EZ .
FAO, “Meat market review: Overview of global meat market developments in 2020,” Rome, March 2021, p. 3: http://
www.fao.org/3/cb3700en/cb3700en.pdf .
Anon., “ACCC raises vertical integration issues over JBS’s
Rivalea pork deal,” Beef Central, 16 September 2021: https://www.beefcentral.com/processing/accc-raises-vertical-integration-issues-over-jbss-rivalea-pork-deal/ .
David Claughton and Peter Somerville, “JBS finalises deal
to buy pork processor Rivalea,” ABC Rural, 04 January 2022:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-01-05/jbs-sealsthe-deal-on-rivalea-pork/100738828 .
Grady McGregor, “The father-son beef that is rattling theworld’s largest pork processor,” Fortune, 25 August 2021:
https://fortune.com/2021/08/25/wh-group-smithfieldfoods-china-pork-family-feud/ .
Agnieszka de Sousa, “From Printing Steaks to Raising Cashfor Cultivated Beef Rollout,” Bloomberg/Quint, 07 July 2021:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/from-printing-steaks-to-raising-cash-for-cultivated-beef-rollout ; seealso Jennifer Marston, “Brief: Qatar plans cell-cultured meat
hub through $200m+ investment in partnership with Eat
Just,” AgFunder News, 31 August 2021: https://agfundernews.
com/qatar-plans-cell-cultured-meat-hub-through-200m-investment-in-eat-just.html .
Oliver Morrison, “Cell-based prices forecast to drop ‘significantly below conventional foods’ in five years as alt proteins
attract record $3.1bn in 2020,” Food Navigator, 18 March
2021: https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/03/18/
Cell-based-prices-forecast-to-drop-significantly-below-conventional-foods-in-five-years-as-alt-proteins-attract-record3.1bn-in-2020 .
ETC Group and IUF, “Lab-grown meat and other Petri-protein industries,” 01 April, 2019: https://www.etcgroup.org/
content/lab-grown-meat-and-other-petri-protein-industries
See Good Food Institute’s company database here: https://
gfi.org/resource/alternative-protein-company-database/https://www.crunchbase.com/home
Sally Ho, “Nestlé Begins Cell-Based Meat Research with Israel’s Future Meat,” Green Queen, 14 July 2021: https://www.
greenqueen.com.hk/nestle-cell-based-meat/ .
OECD/FAO, OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030,
Paris: OECD Publishing, 2021, p. 164: https://doi.
org/10.1787/19428846-en .
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, “Plant-based meats are on the rise.
But are they sustainable?” Canada’s National Observer, 3 December 2020: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/12/03/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 104 |
26
27

28

29

30

31

news/plant-based-meat-sales-surging-sustainable-alternative-protein .
Tom Philpott, “Is Lab Meat About to Hit Your Dinner Plate?”
Mother Jones, 02 August 2021: https://www.motherjones.com/
food/2021/08/is-lab-meat-about-to-hit-your-dinner-plate/ .
Joe Fassler, “Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable.
The science tells a different story.” The Counter, 22 September
2021:
https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meatcost-at-scale/ .
Tom Phillips, “Amazon deforestation surges to 12-year highunder Bolsonaro,” The Guardian, 30 November 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/01/amazon-deforestation-surges-to-12-year-high-under-bolsonaro .
Dom Phillips, “Meat company faces heat over ‘cattle laundering’ in Amazon supply chain,” The Guardian, 20 February
2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/
feb/20/meat-company-faces-heat-over-cattle-launderingin-amazon-supply-chain; see also, Clifford Krauss, David
Yaffe-Bellany and Mariana Simões, “Why Amazon Fires Keep
Raging 10 Years After a Deal to End Them,” New York Times,
10 October 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/
world/americas/amazon-fires-brazil-cattle.html .
Dom Phillips, “Meat company faces heat over ‘cattle laundering’ in Amazon supply chain,” The Guardian, 20 February
2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/
feb/20/meat-company-faces-heat-over-cattle-launderingin-amazon-supply-chain .
X Xu, P. Sharma, S. Shu et al., “Global greenhouse gas
emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plantbased foods,” Nature Food, 2, 2021, pp. 724–732: https://doi.
org/10.1038/s43016-021-00358-x .

32 Michael Pooler and Emiko Terazona, “Brazilian meatpackers’ commitment to emissions targets under scrutiny,”
Financial Times, 27 June 2021: https://www.ft.com/content/03267414-b068-4b05-9d84-0caa794f8d57 .
33 Michael Pooler and Emiko Terazona, “Brazilian meatpackers’ commitment to emissions targets under scrutiny,”
Financial Times, 27 June 2021: https://www.ft.com/content/03267414-b068-4b05-9d84-0caa794f8d57 .
34 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission press release,“SEC Charges Brazilian Meat Producers With FCPA Violations,” 14 October 2020: https://www.sec.gov/news/
press-release/2020-254 .
35 Lisa Sorg, “Partial hog lagoon breach spills 3 million gallons
of feces, urine in Sampson County,” NC Policy Watch blog,
15 June 2020: https://tinyurl.com/32phh5dz .
36 Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal, Mariner Books, 2019, p. 254 (ebook).
37 Professor Lourdes Gouveia quoted in Don Walton, “LineSpeed is Non-Negotiable,” Lincoln Journal Star, 01 June 2003.
38 See, for example, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Meatpacking: https://www.osha.gov/meatpacking .
39 Colin Kinniburgh, “How the Meat Industry Became a Global Health Liability,” France 24, 24 May 2020: https://www.
france24.com/en/20200524-covid-19-how-the-meat-industry-became-a-global-health-liability
40 USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, “Tyson Foods
Inc. Recalls Ready-To-Eat Chicken Products Due to Possible Listeria Contamination,” 03 July 2021: https://www.fsis.
usda.gov/recalls-alerts/tyson-foods-inc.-recalls-ready-eatchicken-products-due-possible-listeria .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Food & beverage
processing
Food & Beverage Processing: The food and beverage industry focuses on the
post-harvest processing of raw agricultural commodities into consumer products– both foodstuffs and feedstuffs for human and animal consumption.
Overlapping Links in the Chain: The food and beverage (F&B) sector illustrates overlapping links in theindustrial food chain: The world’s top 10 food and drink companies (ranked by F&B sales) include two of theworld’s leading ag commodity traders (Cargill1, Archer Daniels Midland2) and three of the world’s top ranking
meat companies (JBS, Cargill, Tyson). See sections on Agricultural Commodity Traders and Big Meat/Protein.

Leading Companies by Food & Beverage (F&B) Sales, 2020
Rank

Company /Headquarters

F&B Sales, 2020
US$ millions

Total Company Sales, 2020
US$ millions

1.

Pepsico (USA)70,37270,372

2.

Nestlé (Switzerland)

67,708

79,114

3.

JBS (Brazil)

50,69052,467

4.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (Belgium)

46,881

46,881

5.

Tyson Foods (USA)43,18543,185

6.

Mars (USA)37,00037,0007.

Archer Daniels Midland Co (USA)35,39564,355

8.

The Coca-Cola Co (USA)34,30034,3009.

Cargill (USA)32,375

114,600

10.

Danone (France)

26,927

26,927

Top 10 (F&B Sales only)

444,833

11.

Mondelez (USA)26,581

26,581

12.

Kraft Heinz (USA)26,18526,18513.

Smithfield Foods/WH Group (China)

24,46325,58914.

Olam International (Singapore)

22,842

25,97515.

Lactalis (France)

22,75522,755

Top 100 (F&B sales only)

1,316,312

Source: Food Engineering Magazine, September 2021: https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/2021-top-100-food-beverage-companies

| 106 |Top Heavy:• The F&B sales of each of the top 4 firms surpassed US$45 billion in sales.
Sales of the top 10 companies each surpassed US$25 billion.
• The top 10 F&B behemoths collectively account for a US$445 billion
global market share, close to half a trillion dollars.3• The F&B sales of the top 100 companies collectively exceed US$1.3 trillion.4
Really Big Food: The world’s top 10 F&B companies account for over onethird (34%) of the sales earned by the top 100 F&B companies worldwide(food & bev sales only). The world’s top 4 F&B firms account for 18% of thesales posted by the top 100 companies in 2020.

Trends: chew on thisETC finds:••••

Volatility and asymmetry
Consolidation on the fast track
Digital path to market power: closing in on the consumer
Climate-driven techno-fixes

Volatility: The uncertainty and economic upheaval spawned by Covid-19
are rattling every link in the industrial food chain. In 2021 F&B firms hiked
product prices in response to labour shortages and soaring costs for raw materials, manufacturing, packaging and shipping.5 Supply chain seizures areconfounding access to everything from computer chips to potato chips. In
the absence of vigorous anti-trust regulations, some of the world’s largest
food companies are using the pandemic-induced supply chain gridlock as an
excuse to raise prices. In other words, the problem isn’t just supply chainchaos; it’s corporate greed.6
Big Food’s Under-Belly: According to FAO’s 2021 report on hunger, moderate or severe food insecurity has been climbing for the past six years andnow affects nearly one-third of the world population.7 In 2019, around 3 billion people could not afford healthy food due to spiralling food prices andpervasive income inequality.8 A record 193 million people faced acute foodinsecurity in 2021, even before the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine.9
Consolidation on the Fast Track: The global pandemic hasn’t diminished
the F&B sector’s appetite for mergers and acquisitions (M&A). 2020 saw a
36% increase in the number of M&A deals – totaling US$110 billion – compared to a 10% drop in the number of deals in 2019.10 Big Food & Beveragedeals include:
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 107 |2021:• International Flavors & Fragrances seal the deal on a US$26.2 billion
megamerger with DuPont’s Nutrition & Biosciences division, creating afood ingredient powerhouse worth US$45.4 billion.11• PepsiCo agrees to sell its controlling stake in Tropicana and Naked Juicebrands to French private equity firm PAI Partners for US$3.3 billion.
• Hormel Foods acquires Kraft Heinz’s snack-nut business (Planters Peanuts) for US$3.3 billion.
• Coca-Cola announces its biggest-ever acquisition: a US$5.6 billion deal
to acquire full control of BodyArmor sports drink.
2020:• Coca-Cola bottlers/distributors in Europe (CCEP) swallow Australian Coca-Cola bottler, Amatil, for US$6.6 billion.
• PepsiCo gulps down Rockstar (energy drink) for US$3.8 billion.
• Lactalis, the world’s largest dairy, buys natural and specialty cheese business from Kraft Heinz for US$3.2 billion.
• Beer behemoth, AB InBev, sells its Australian subsidiary to Asahi Group
Holdings (Japan) for US$11 billion.
2019:• Froneri joint venture buys Nestlé’s US ice cream business for US$4 billion.
• Investment firm KKR swallows the international operations of Campbell
Soup Co for US$2.2 billion.
Big Food’s Digital Quest: Closing in on the Consumer
Big Food is vying to become “consumer-centric.”12 With many customers
eating, working, playing and staying at home, F&B manufacturers aren’t content to sit back and watch giant food retailers dominate e-commerce. Insteadof allowing its big brand products to sit passively on the grocer’s shelf, F&B
industry giants are increasing investment in digital tech and mining “customer data platforms.”13 For example:••

AB/InBev, the titanic brewer that sells about one-third of the world’sbeer, is hawking and delivering beer with its BEES B2B e-commerce platform, BeerHawk.co.uk and Zé Delivery platform (Brazil). CEO Carlos
Brito says, “We are now more closely connected than ever to the 6 million+ customers and 2 billion+ consumers we serve worldwide throughour clear commercial strategy, our revamped innovation process, digitalplatforms and our ongoing operational excellence.”14
Nestlé is adding to its “dietary management” and “personalized nutrition” portfolio with, for example, the recent US$2.6 billion acquisitionof bio-pharma firm and peanut-allergy treatment maker, Aimmune. In
2020, Nestlé also acquired Freshly, a “healthy” meal delivery services
firm, for US$950 million. Both acquisitions aim to forge direct links to

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 108 |•the consumer, exploit the overlap between food and nutrition and amplify the digital path to market power.
With the onset of Covid-19, PepsiCo took just 30 days to launch its direct-to-consumer platforms, Snacks.com and PantryShop.com

F & B Trends: Products perceived as “healthy” and “good-for-you” continue
to be M&A “targets of choice” for the F&B industry, according to Financial
Times.15 So-called “performance nutrition” and low-sugar options are among
them: For example:• PepsiCo is selling its controlling stake in sugary-drinks Tropicana and Naked Juice brands for US$3.3bn in order to focus on calorie-free beverages
and energy drinks.16• Nestlé is in talks to buy the maker of Nature’s Bounty vitamins and minerals, a multi-billion deal that seeks to bolster its “wellbeing” portfolio.17• Even once-dominant sugar titan Tate & Lyle plans to shed its controllinginterest in bulk sweeteners.18
Climate-Driven Techno-Fixes:
The seismic shocks of climate chaos promise far greater disruption than the
global covid pandemic, and in addition food systems account for more than
one third of global greenhouse gas emissions.19 In hot pursuit of “green haloes,” industrial food giants are rolling out ambitious sustainability pledges
to “decarbonize” their business models in myriad ways – from embracing“regenerative agriculture” and “carbon-footprint” product labeling, to genetic tinkering and geo-engineering.

Regenerative Agriculture: Climate-Friendly or Business as
Usual? Many of the world’s largest food & beverage corporations
are pledging to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions in the next two
decades by supporting “regenerative farming,” a shape-shifting term
without a standard definition. Industry proponents include PepsiCo,
Unilever, Cargill, Nestlé, General Mills, JBS and private equity firms,
among others. In some cases, regenerative farming may include practices
such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, and crop rotation, or the collection of on-farm data to assess the impact of these practices. But theterm is now used so indiscriminately by some corporations that it may
even refer to the use of pesticides and GMOs in monoculture cropping
when combined with livestock production.20
According to Nestlé, two thirds of its greenhouse gas emissions comefrom agriculture and to reach its ambitious climate goals, it plans tofunnel US$1.3 billion by 2025 into regenerative agriculture across its
supply chain.21 Cargill and General Mills pledge to push regenerative
agriculture practices across 10 million acres22 of farmland and 1 million

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 109 |acres of farmland23 by 2030, respectively; PepsiCo plans to spread regenerative farming practices across 7 million acres by the same year.24
In 2019, 19 food and agriculture-related companies – including Kellogg Company, DSM, McCain Foods, Nestlé, Unilever, Yara – and theWorld Council for Sustainable Development formed the “One Planet
Business for Biodiversity” partnership, ostensibly to “protect and restore biodiversity within their supply chains and product portfolios.”25“Scaling up regenerative agriculture practices to protect soil health”
is a central focus.26 The Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU), a key
architect of the UN Food Systems Summit, is a corporate lobby group(funded by Yara and Unilever) masquerading as a think tank.27 FOLU
advocates the use of digital technologies and GMOs to scale regenerative agriculture to “transform food and land use.”28 Critics point out
that it does nothing to address profound inequities in access to land
and land rights.29
In the absence of a universal standard for regenerative agriculture, Big
Food & Ag is directing investments to data-fuelled digital agriculture
projects, soil carbon measurement initiatives, including establishingcarbon marketplaces and promoting farming practices like no-till. Cargill’s “RegenConnect” program, which pays farmers on the basis ofsoil health and environmental outcomes, includes payment per metricton of carbon sequestered.30 Cargill partners with a carbon measurement firm Regrow, which uses in-field data, remote sensing and cropand soil health modelling to measure soil carbon.31 These offsets arethen sold to corporations, which can tout their climate-saving bonafides without having to make material changes to their polluting operations. Cargill itself bought carbon offsets from its RegenConnect
farmers.32,33 Similarly, the Bayer Carbon Program pays growers for implementing “carbon-smart” practices like no-till, strip-till and covercrops for sequestering carbon in the soil, including the cultivation of
GMO crops.34
Promoting soil carbon sequestration as a reliable climate mitigation
tool seems particularly specious in light of recent research that finds
the potential of soil to soak up carbon has likely been overestimated.35
JBS, which committed to invest US$100 million by 2030 to strengthenand scale regenerative farming practices, including carbon sequestration and on-farm emission mitigation technologies,36 actually increased
its emissions by 51% between 2016 to 2021.37

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 110 |Lofty pledges to slash greenhouse gas emissions often exclude supply chainsand consumer waste, and involve murky accounting.38 Recent in-depth reports from civil society organizations are revealing corporate greenwashingand fraudulent climate pledges.39 The bottom line, according to Friends ofthe Earth International: “‘Greenwashing’ hardly suffices as a term to describe
these efforts to obscure continued growth in fossil emissions – ‘ecocide’ and‘genocide’ more accurately capture the impacts the world will face.”40“The big myth in the corporate sustainability world is the idea of ‘win-win’— that a company can maximize profits and still stay environmentally friendly… We have 30 years of data that we can look at and say that doesn’t work.”
Roland Geyer, professor of industrial ecology at the University of California,
Santa Barbara41
Monetizing Brand “Sustainability”: Unilever (a “Principal Partner” forthe UN 2021 climate summit in Glasgow) and maker of 75,000 products
is testing carbon-footprint labelling on its products, and is also proposing
the idea of “carbon-friendly” aisles in supermarkets.42 Carbon labelling isdesigned to appeal to climate-conscious consumers, but it also feeds thefalse notion that personal choices tied to consumption, rather than systemicchanges, are the best way to cut emissions from greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, a 2021 report by Break Free from Plastic reveals that Unilever was #3(after Coca-Cola and PepsiCo) on the list of the world’s Top 10 Corporate
Plastic Polluters.43 (The data was collected from over 11,000 volunteers who
conducted 440 brand audits in 45 countries.) Not surprisingly, the top 10
corporate plastic polluters include six of the companies appearing on our listof the world’s 15 largest food and beverage firms.44
ADM: Geoengineer to the World? In April 2021 Archer Daniels Midland
declared that its Illinois-based experiment had successfully captured andstored one million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a period of three
years.45 Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to the mechanical captureof CO2 emissions from power plants or other industrial sources; ADM is
injecting CO2 emissions from its coal-fired, corn-based ethanol processing plant more than 6,500 feet underground. Carbon capture is a lucrative
source of corporate welfare for ADM. Since 2017 the US government has
granted over US$280 million to support ADM’s experiment,46 and the company stands to receive tax credits of US$20 per metric ton of carbon stored
underground.47 Critics point out that carbon capture and storage is itself an
inefficient and energy-intensive process that sustains the fossil fuel industry.48 Although ADM’s CO2 storage is meant to be permanent, no one reallyknows if the captured CO2 will stay underground, taint soil or groundwater,or cause seismic activity.49

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 111 |Climate-Driven Supply Chain Disruption: When it comes to Big Food’s
dependence on traditional export commodities from the global South, thefood and beverage sector is following its business-as-usual instincts: to secure raw materials inputs at lower costs and dodge geo-political unrest. The
quest for cheaper raw materials and input substitution is nothing new, butinvestment in climate-driven techno-fixes is heating up. Two examples:
Chocolate-Covered Techno-Fix? Cargill, one of the world’s largest buyersof cocoa beans, is partnering with AeroFarms (New Jersey) to secure future
cocoa bean supplies in the face of climate change50 – presumably without soilor the 5 million farming households that depend on cocoa as a cash crop.51
Details are sparse, but AeroFarms specializes in “controlled environment agriculture,” vertical farming and “soilless growth media.” The company prides
itself in being “able to disrupt traditional supply chains.”52
Wake Up and Smell the Petri-Beans: With climate chaos threatening thesustainability of future coffee harvests, the food industry is betting that bioreactor-brewed petri-beans may be in your future. Coffee is harvested on an
estimated 12.5 million farms worldwide, of which 67–80% are smallholder
farms in the global South.53 In September 2021 researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland announced they had sipped the world’s firstlab-grown coffee.54 Using synthetic biology, researchers coaxed engineered
microbes and coffee plant cells to brew in bioreactors. Despite a lukewarm
review of its aroma and taste (“…our trained sensory panel…found the profile of the brew to bear similarity to ordinary coffee”), lead researcher Heiko
Rischer optimistically forecasts that his lab is “only four years away from
ramping up production and having regulatory approval in place” for synbio-brewed coffee.55 California-based synthetic biology start-up, Compound
Foods, is also pioneering the development of a “beanless coffee.”56

What is Synthetic Biology? Synthetic biology brings together engineering and the life sciences in order to design and construct new
biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in the natural
world or to tweak the designs of existing biological systems. Synthetic
biologists, engaged in a kind of extreme genetic engineering, hope toconstruct designer organisms that perform specific tasks such as producing biofuels or other high-value compounds.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 112 |Notes
1Food revenue is only about 28% of Cargill’s total revenue.
2 Food revenue accounts for about 55% of ADM’s total revenue.
3 The top 100 food & beverage companies (food & beverage sales only) collectively account for a global market of
US$1,316,312 million. The information was gleaned from FoodEngineering Magazine’s database. Source: Food Engineering Magazine, September 2021: https://www.foodengineeringmag.
com/2021-top-100-food-beverage-companies.
4 The top 100 food & beverage companies (food & beverage sales only) collectively account for a global market of
US$1,316,312 million. The information was gleaned from FoodEngineering Magazine’s database. Source: Food Engineering Magazine, September 2021: https://www.foodengineeringmag.
com/2021-top-100-food-beverage-companies.
5 Christopher Doering, “As inflation rages, food and beverage manufacturers pass higher costs on to consumers,” Food
Dive, 4 May 2021: https://www.fooddive.com/news/as-inflation-rages-food-and-beverage-manufacturers-pass-higher-costs-on-to/599148/.
6 Brian Deese, Sameera Fazili, and Bharat Ramamurti, “Recent Data Show Dominant Meat Processing Companies
Are Taking Advantage of Market Power to Raise Prices
and Grow Profit Margins,” The White House, December
10, 2021: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
blog/2021/12/10/recent-data-show-dominant-meat-processing-companies-are-taking-advantage-of-market-power-toraise-prices-and-grow-profit-margins/.
7 FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2020. In Brief: The Stateof Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets forall. Rome, FAO, 2021: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb5409en.
8 FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2020. In Brief: The Stateof Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets forall. Rome, FAO, 2021: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb5409en.
9 Maytaal Angel, “Ukraine war set to worsen severe hunger
worldwide - U.N. report,” Reuters, 4 May 2022: https://www.reuters.com/world/urgent-action-needed-tackle-surge-food-insecurity-un-agency-says-2022-05-04/.
10 Anon., “Food and Beverage M&A Deals Jump By More Than
A Third In 2020,” European Supermarket News, 15 June 2021:
https://www.esmmagazine.com/a-brands/food-beveragema-deals-see-36-growth-2020-136240.
11 Megan Poinski, “IFF completes $26.2B merger with DuPont
unit,” FoodDive, 1 Feb 2021: https://www.fooddive.com/
news/iff-on-track-to-complete-262b-merger-with-dupontunit-in-february/588850/.
12 Panel of industry analysts (paid content), “The Food &Beverage Industry,” Los Angeles Times, 17 April 2021: https://www.latimes.com/brandpublishing/business-advisory/story/2021-05-17/the-food-and-beverage-industry .
13 Anup Prasad, “How food manufacturers can connect with
consumers to boost brand relevance,” Food Dive, 19 April
2021: https://www.fooddive.com/spons/how-food-manufacturers-can-connect-with-consumers-to-boost-brand-relevance/598430/.
14 Casey Laughman, “The 2021 Top 100 Food and Beverage
Companies,” Food Engineering, 27 August 2021: https://www.
foodengineeringmag.com/articles/99594-the-2021-top100-food-and-beverage-companies.
15 Anonymous, “Pitfalls, opportunities and the people towatch: A cross-industry round-up of leading figures, events

16

17
18
19

20

21
22

23

24

25

26

27

28

and trends that will be shaping the business landscape thisyear,” Financial Times, 4 January 2021:
Kay Wiggins and James Fontanella-Khan, “PepsiCo to sell
Tropicana and Naked Juice brands to private equity firm for$3.3bn,” Financial Times, 3 August 2021:
https://www.proquest.com/abicomplete/indexingvolumeissuelinkhandler/26316/FT.com/02021Y08Y03$23Aug+3,+2021/$B/$B?accountid=10613.
Alistair Gray, “Nestlé in talks to buy Bountiful Company,”
Financial Times, 26 April 2021:
Tate & Lyle: JV deal is as fresh as paint, “Tate & Lyle: JV deal
is as fresh as paint,” Financial Times, 12 July 2021: https://www.
ft.com/content/b3ef2a92-e1bc-4439-93c0-31d09d5ed22e.
FAO, “Food systems account for more than one third ofglobal greenhouse gas emissions,” FAO News Release,
9 March 2021: https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/
item/1379373/icode/. See also, M. Crippa, E. Solazzo, D.
Guizzardi, et al. “Food systems are responsible for a third ofglobal anthropogenic GHG emissions.” Nat Food 2, 198–209(2021): https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9.
ETC Group, “Hijacking Food Systems: technofix takeover at
the FSS,” Communique #118, July 2021: https://etcgroup.org/
sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/final_fss_en_for_web_revised_130821.pdf.
Nestle, “Regenerative Agriculture,”: https://www.nestle.
com/sustainability/nature-environment/regenerative-agriculture
Cargill, “Cargill to advance regenerative agriculture practices across 10 million acres of North American farmland by 2030,” 16 September 2020: https://www.cargill.
com/2020/cargill-to-advance-regenerative-agriculture-practices-across-10
General Mills, Regenerative Agriculture,”: https://www.
generalmills.com/how-we-make-it/healthier-planet/environmental-impact/regenerative-agriculture#:~:text=In%20
2019%2C%20we%20committed%20to,greenhouse%20
gas%20emissions%20by%202050
Megan Schilling, “Pepsico announces 2030 goal to scale
regenerative farming practices across 7 million acres,” Successful Farming, 20 April 2021: https://www.agriculture.com/
news/pepsico-announces-2030-goal-to-scale-regenerative-farming-practices-across-7-million-acres
WBSCD, “Nineteen leading companies join forces to step up
alternative farming practices and protect biodiversity, for the
benefit of planet and people,” 23 September 2019: https://www.wbcsd.org/Programs/Food-and-Nature/News/Nineteen-leading-companies-join-forces-to-step-up-alternative-farming-practices-and-protect-biodiversity-for-the-benefit-of-planet-and-people.
WBSCD, “Nineteen leading companies join forces to step up
alternative farming practices and protect biodiversity, for the
benefit of planet and people,” 23 September 2019: https://www.wbcsd.org/Programs/Food-and-Nature/News/Nineteen-leading-companies-join-forces-to-step-up-alternative-farming-practices-and-protect-biodiversity-for-the-benefit-of-planet-and-people.
ETC Group, “Hijacking Food Systems: technofix takeover at
the FSS,” Communique #118, July 2021: https://etcgroup.org/
sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/final_fss_en_for_web_revised_130821.pdf.
Food and Land Use Coalition, “Critical Transition 2. Scaling
Productive and Regenerative Agriculture,” September 2019:https://www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/wp-content/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 113 |
29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36
37

38

39

40

uploads/2019/09/Critical-Transitions-2-Scaling-Productive-Regenerative-Agriculture.pdf
Thea Walmsley, “Can we talk about Regenerative Agriculture?,” A Growing Culture, 26 April 2021:
h t t p s : / / a g ro w i n g c u lt u re . s u b s ta c k . c o m / p /can-we-talk-about-regenerative-agriculture?s=r.
Cargill, “Cargill introduces new revenue stream for farmers
as part of 10 million acre regenerative agriculture commitment,” 16 September 2021: https://www.cargill.com/2021/
cargill-introduces-new-revenue-stream-for-farmers
Karl Plume, “Cargill launches U.S. carbon farming programfor 2022 season,” Reuters, 16 September 2021: https://www.
reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/cargill-launches-us-carbon-farming-program-2022-season-2021-09-16/
Jesse Klein, “Cargill aims to connect farmers to carbon offset
buyers,” Greenbiz, 29 September 2021: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/cargill-aims-connect-farmers-carbon-offset-buyers#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20company%20managed,offsets%20on%20an%20annual%20basis.
Karl Plume, “Cargill launches U.S. carbon farming programfor 2022 season,” Reuters, 16 September 2021: https://www.
reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/cargill-launches-us-carbon-farming-program-2022-season-2021-09-16/
Karl Plume, “Bayer launches carbon capture program for U.S.
and Brazil farmers,” Reuters, 21 July 2020: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-bayer-farming-climate-change-idUKKCN24M2DG. See also, Bayer’s statement that planting
GMOs is climate-friendly, as here: Bayer Crop Science,“Give It a Minute: Climate Change,” video, 15 February
2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgJWnjnyux4.
Damian Carrington, “One of Earth’s giant carbon sinks may
have been overestimated – study,” Guardian, 24 March 2021:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/24/
soils-ability-to-absorb-carbon-emissions-may-be-overestimated-study.
Ben Lilliston, “Behind the curtain of the JBS net zero pledge,”
21 October 2021: https://www.iatp.org/documents/behindcurtain-jbs-net-zero-pledge
DeSmog, “World’s largest meat company, JBS, increases
emissions by 51% in five years despite 2040 net zero climate target, continues to greenwash its huge climate footprint,”21 April, 2022: https://www.iatp.org/media-brief-jbsincreases-emissions-51-percent .
Michael Corkery and Julie Creswell, “Corporate Climate
Pledges Often Ignore a Key Component: Supply Chains,”
New York Times, 2 November 2021: https://www.nytimes.
com/2021/11/02/business/corporate-climate-pledge-supply-chain.html .
See, for example: Doreen Stabinsky, “Chasing carbon unicorns: The Deception Of Carbon Markets and “Net Zero,”
Friends of the Earth International, February 2021: https://www.foei.org/publication/chasing-unicorns-carbon-markets-net-zero/ . See also: Ben Lilliston, “Behind the curtain of
the JBS net zero pledge,” Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, 21 October 2021: https://www.iatp.org/documents/
behind-curtain-jbs-net-zero-pledge . See also, GRAIN, Corporate greenwashing: “net zero” and “nature-based solutions” are a deadly fraud,” 17 March 2021: https://grain.org/
en/article/6634-corporate-greenwashing-net-zero-and-nature-based-solutions-are-a-deadly-fraud#sdfootnote33anc .
Doreen Stabinsky, “Chasing carbon unicorns: The Deception Of Carbon Markets and ‘Net Zero’,” Friends of the
Earth International, February 2021: https://www.foei.org/
publication/chasing-unicorns-carbon-markets-net-zero/ .

41 Geyer is quoted in the New York Times: Michael Corkery andJulie Creswell, “Corporate Climate Pledges Often Ignore a
Key Component: Supply Chains,” New York Times, 2 November 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/business/
corporate-climate-pledge-supply-chain.html .
42 Lauren Manning, “Unilever to test carbon footprint labels
on products in 2021,”
FoodDive, 15 July 2021: https://www.fooddive.com/news/
unilever-to-test-carbon-footprint-labels-on-products-in2021-report/603432/.
43 Chris Casey, “Coca-Cola, Unilever among top plastic polluters, report says,” FoodDive, 25 October 2021. https://www.
fooddive.com/news/coca-cola-unilever-among-top-plastic-polluters-report-says/608818/.
44 According to Break Free From Plastic, the Top 10 Corporate Plastic Polluters: The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo,
Unilever, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Mondelēz International, Philip Morris International, Danone, Mars, Inc.,and Colgate-Palmolive: https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BRAND-AUDIT-REPORT-2021.pdf.
45 Archer Daniels Midland, “ADM Announces Successful
Completion of One Million Metric Ton Carbon Captureand Storage Project,” ADM News Release, 19 April 2021:
https://investors.adm.com/news/news-details/2021/ADMAnnounces-Successful-Completion-of-One-Million-MetricTon-Carbon-Capture-and-Storage-Project/default.aspx .
46 U.S. Department of Energy, Cooperative Agreementwith ADM (DEFE0001547), viewed on 1 Nov 2021:
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_
DEFE0001547_8900.
47 Johnathan Hettinger, “Despite hundreds of millions in tax
dollars, ADM’s carbon capture program still hasn’t met
promised goals,” Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, 20
November 2020:
https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/11/19/despite-hundreds-of-millions-in-tax-dollars-adms-carbon-capture-program-still-hasnt-met-promised-goals/.
48 Geoengineering Monitor, “Carbon Capture Use and Storage,” Geoengineering Technology Briefing, Jan 2021:
https://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/wp-content/
uploads/2021/04/carbon-capture-use-and-storage.pdf. The
Geoengineering Monitor website is a collaboration between ETC Group, Biofuelwatch, Heinrich Boell Foundation, and the Global Forest Coalition.
49 Tony Briscoe, “Decatur plant at forefront of push to pipe
carbon emissions underground, but costs raise questions,”
Chicago Tribune, 23 November 2017: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-decatur-plant-carbonstorage-20171024-story.html.
50 AeroFarms News Release, “Cargill Partners with Vertical
Farming Leader AeroFarms in First-of-Its-Kind Research Focused on Cocoa Production,” 13 August 2021: https://www.
aerofarms.com/2021/08/13/cargill-partners-with-verticalfarming-leader-aerofarms-in-first-of-its-kind-research-focused-on-cocoa-production/ .
51 Vivek Voora, Steffany Bermúdez, Cristina Larrea, Global Market Report: Cocoa, International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2019: https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/ssi-global-market-report-cocoa.pdf .
52 AeroFarms website: https://www.aerofarms.com.
53 Vivek Voora, Steffany Bermúdez, Cristina Larrea and Sofia
Baliño, Global Market Report: Coffee, International Institute for

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 114 |Sustainable Development, 2019: https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/ssi-global-market-report-coffee.pdf.
54 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, “Sustainable
coffee grown in Finland – the land that drinks the most coffee per capita produces its first tasty cup with cellular agriculture,” VTT Press Release, 15 September 2021: https://www.vttresearch.com/en/news-and-ideas/sustainable-coffee-grown-finland-land-drinks-most-coffee-capita-produces-its-first.

55 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, “Sustainable
coffee grown in Finland – the land that drinks the most coffee per capita produces its first tasty cup with cellular agriculture,” VTT Press Release, 15 September 2021: https://www.vttresearch.com/en/news-and-ideas/sustainable-coffee-grown-finland-land-drinks-most-coffee-capita-produces-its-first.
56 https://www.compound-foods.com/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

GroceryretailCompanies in the Grocery Retail sector sell perishable and non-perishable foods(“edible grocery”) to consumers via retail outlets (stores – including membership-only retail stores – or online). The world’s largest grocery retailers sell both
non-food products (“non-edible grocery”) and food. According to retail industry
analyst Edge by Ascential, worldwide consumer spending on retail food & beverage
totaled $8,271 billion (US$8.3 trillion) in 2020.
Sales of Leading Grocery Retailers, 2020
Rank

Company (Headquarters)

Edible Grocery Sales 2020
US$ million% Market Shareof Top 10 Grocery Retailers

1.

Walmart (USA)271,937

29.70

2.

Schwarz Group (Germany)

121,155

13.21

3.

Kroger (USA)81,497

8.9

4.

Costco (USA)79,9108.7

5.

Carrefour (France)

63,205

6.9

6.

Aldi Süd (Germany)

62,164

6.8

7.

Tesco (UK)60,3896.6

8.

Seven & I Holdings (Japan)

60,374

6.6

9.

Ahold Delhaize (Netherlands)

58,6696.4

10.

Rewe Group (Germany)

57,477

6.3

Total Top 10

916,777

Total Global Consumer Spending
on Grocery, 2020

8,270,580

Source: Edge by Ascential

| 116 |•••The top 10 grocery retailers control approximately 11% of global consumer spending on groceries, about the same share as in 2018.
Walmart accounts for almost one third of sales by the world’s top 10
grocery retailers.
In 2020, global consumer spending on food and beverage topped US$8
trillion for the first time.

Introduction: The consumer-facing, global grocery retail sector is morevaried than other sectors of the industrial food chain, selling its wares via
multiple channels (e.g., corner stores, supermarkets, convenience stores,
big box/discount clubs, online outlets). The Economist claimed, early in 2021,
that Covid-19 gave grocery retailers “a crash course in reinvention,”1 but grocery retailers didn’t re-invent themselves; more accurately, one of the sector’s channels – e-commerce – got an unexpected and timely boost at theexpense of other channels. Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “The pandemic
packed 10 years of consumer e-commerce adoption into a single quarter, andforced every company that wasn’t Amazon… to scramble to offer consumers new and better ways to shop from home.”2 In fact, the food giants – even
e-commerce giants – continue their fight for “omni” channel dominance.

Trends: chew on thisETC finds that while 2020’s sector trends are recognizable from ourearlier research, in some cases, the global coronavirus pandemic intensified them:
1.

The long-standing consolidation trend continues in most major markets (except where national regulators step in to limit it).
2. Retailers are increasingly investing in ways to bolster online
grocery sales. ETC highlighted that trend previously, but hadn’t
anticipated that folks would be stuck-at-home under lockdown– self-imposed or otherwise – in 2020, and many would rely on
e-commerce (and delivery) almost exclusively. Amazon, Alibaba,
Walmart and JD.com dominate in grocery e-commerce, but all
major retailers are looking ahead toward a “seamless” integrationof on-line and off-line grocery shopping.
3. At first glance, the global grocery sector’s relatively low level ofmarket concentration may suggest healthy competition. But
competition in this sector is illusory. The world’s largest asset
management firms (e.g., Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street, etc.)
are among the largest institutional shareholders of the leading
grocery retailers. High levels of “horizontal ownership” (as well as
concentration at national levels) discourages competition.3

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 117 |Consolidation in the global grocery sector remains an ongoing trend,
though India and China have recently seen some pushback. For example:
India: India’s national grocery retail sector is estimated to be the third largest
in the world (after China and the United States); according to Euromonitor International, India’s grocery retail sales reached US$410 billion in 2020.4
Neighbourhood mom-and-pop shops – known as kirana stores – dominate,accounting for an astonishing 90% of India’s grocery market.5 According to
Mumbai-based app-developer Ashish Kumar, early in the pandemic (February 2020), fewer than 9% of kirana stores had an online presence, but people
felt most comfortable buying from small stores that didn’t require them toleave their neighbourhoods.6 So shop owners improvised, introducing digitalbuying on the fly via websites, WhatsApp groups and digital payment apps.
With the pandemic fueling 10% growth in India’s grocery sector in 2020,7 it’sno surprise that large tech firms crave a bigger slice of the country’s retail pie.
They see e-commerce expertise as the way to make inroads and, ultimately,
diminish the market power of corner-shop outlets.8
In 2021, Tata Group acquired a majority stake (64.3%) in BigBasket, India’s
biggest e-grocery player, buying out Alibaba’s 30% stake. That means Tata is
now a competitor to Amazon Fresh, FlipKart (majority-owned by Walmart)and JioMart (subsidiary of Jio Platforms, which is owned by Reliance, theMumbai-based multinational conglomerate).9 Facebook invested US$5.7 billion in Jio Platforms in 2020, focusing on JioMart-Whatsapp interoperability
for grocery e-commerce.10 Google, which launched its “India Digitization
Fund” in mid-2020 (committing US$10 billion over 5-7 years) and Relianceare both backing Dunzo, the newest ultra-fast grocery delivery darling operating in “the complex micro-ecosystems” of India’s cities.11 At the same timethat e-commerce titans are upping their game, Swiggy, one of India’s two
dominant food delivery apps, shifted its business focus away from preparedfoods and towards grocery.12
China: During 2020’s lockdowns, China’s consumers also embraced buying
groceries online – including fresh food – with convenience-store owners orapartment-complex managers organizing group buying, commonly using
Tencent’s ubiquitous WeChat messaging. China’s biggest e-commerce players saw an untapped market and were willing to burn cash to beat out competitors. Pinduoduo, along with titans Alibaba, JD.com and Meituan, quickly upped their grocery game, especially in smaller cities.13 Alibaba bought acontrolling stake (72%) in big box/supermarket chain Sun Art for US$3.6 billion. JD.com, reportedly with China’s most sophisticated logistics network,
adapted to handle fresh produce.14 Pinduoduo, which incorporates gaming
to attract users (it’s “both Costco and Disneyland” according to its founderand CEO)15 and gets almost all of its revenue from ad sales (sellers on theplatform buy ads to attract buyers), raised US$6 billion in 2020 for grocery
operations.16 Another group-buying behemoth, Meituan, the world’s largest food-delivery company and China’s third largest internet company after
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 118 |Tencent and Alibaba, launched its grocery group-buying app in mid-2020. A
few months later, Meituan announced it was expanding to more than 1,000
towns across the country, with plans for even further expansion.17
Beginning late 2020, China’s antitrust regulator began investigating the country’s big tech companies for potential harms to competition, consumers andworkers. In December 2020, the Communist party newspaper published acommentary scolding China’s Big Tech for its cut-throat competition: “Don’t
just think about a few bundles of cabbage, [or] the online traffic driven by afew pounds of fruit,”18 which pretty much sums up the e-commerce businessmodel in the rest of the world. In 2021, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation fined Alibaba an unprecedented US$2.8 billion for pressuring
sellers to use its e-commerce platform exclusively; Meituan was subsequently fined US$530 million for similar antitrust violations.19 Given that the leviedfines represented well below 5% of each company’s annual domestic sales,
it’s not yet clear what lesson they will learn from their formal rebuke.
Other Consolidation Moves: In most of the rest of the world, mergers, acquisitions and sell offs moved forward – less hindered and in more expectedways:• Ahold Delhaize (# 9), Europe’s largest publicly-traded grocery seller,
is also one of the largest players in the United States and is looking for
more acquisitions there, focusing on smaller stores that lack the capital to invest in e-commerce. Ahold Delhaize already earns three-fifths
of its revenue in the U.S.20 In 2020, the company bought a majority
stake (80%) in FreshDirect, a pure-play (ie dedicated) e-grocer headquartered in New York City, for an undisclosed price.21• In early 2021, Walmart (#1) sold its majority stake in Asda Group (theUK’s 3rd largest grocery chain) to an investment firm and UK billionaire brothers Zuber and Mohsin Issa for US$8.8 billion. Walmart retained a minority stake and a seat on the board,22 but some analysts
believe the move indicates that Walmart is shifting focus to its domestic tussle with Amazon for retail dominance.23• Out-bidding other private equity firms in a competition that came
down to a frenzied, one-day auction, US-based Clayton, Dubilier &Rice bought Wm Morrison Supermarkets, the UK’s 4th largest grocery chain (founded in 1899), for US$9.4 billion in October 2021.24
Private equity firms are now eyeing Sainsbury’s, the UK’s 2nd largest
grocery chain (behind Tesco, #7 globally), as a possible next target.25• Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm that bought Smart& Final in 2019, sold the big box grocery chain operating in the southwestern U.S. two years later, to Bodega Latina, a subsidiary of Mexican retailer Grupo Comercial Chedraui, for US$620 million.26

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 119 |Where are Amazon and Alibaba? Even with the surge in online grocery
shopping due to the pandemic, supermarkets and neighbourhood stores still
dominate worldwide food and beverage sales, accounting for about 40% of
the total.27 That dominance is predicted to diminish over the next five years,
with e-commerce – no surprise – seeing the highest growth among retailchannels.28
While the world’s biggest online retailers, Alibaba and Amazon, aren’t among
the Top 10 grocery retailers, their e-expertise gave them an edge when the
pandemic hit. For comparison, in mid-2021, retail consultancy Edge by Ascential estimated Alibaba’s annual online grocery sales were US$20.6 billion
and Walmart’s about half of that (US$10.1 billion) with Amazon’s estimated
US$14.5 billion in online grocery sales trailing Alibaba but beating Walmart;however, Edge by Ascential put Walmart’s store-based grocery sales at
US$238 billion.29 That’s more than ten times the value of Alibaba’s online sales,
even during a period when online grocery sales got an unprecedented boost
due to the pandemic.
Going forward, the distinction between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar
will become less and less relevant. As ETC Group pointed out in Plate Tech-tonics, the goal of retailers is to seamlessly integrate shopping online and offline.
Alibaba has been selling groceries out of its Freshippo stores since 2016, andthose stores double as fulfillment centers for online sales. Amazon bought
the brick-and-mortar Whole Foods in 2017 and customers can shop in-store
or buy groceries online from the store’s website or using its app, choosing
delivery or curb-side pick-up. In addition, Amazon has been growing its own
line of private label products commonly found on grocery store shelves –dog food, snack foods, baby wipes, diapers – and needs retail outlets in order
to sell more of them. Since stores like Target and Walmart aren’t keen toprovide a “showroom” for a rival’s products – especially one that notoriously
undercuts them on price – Amazon is looking to expand its own brick-andmortar retail space.30 In 2020, Walmart introduced Walmart Plus, a subscription service modelled on Amazon Prime, which reduces or eliminates shipping and delivery fees. According to The Economist: “the grocery wars havebarely begun.”31
War or Détente? While commentators like to use bellicose language suggesting fierce, tactical competition between the giant grocery retailers, it’s
important to keep in mind that these rival armies enlist many of the samegenerals, who may even coordinate battle plans. In many cases, institutional
investors (with voting rights) hold shares in more than one company operating in the same sector – an example of “horizontal shareholding” – which
incentivizes them to influence those companies to lessen competition inorder to increase the total value of their portfolios.32 Scholars have documented institutional investors’ influence related to corporate governancechoices – including board composition and manager compensation – with
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 120 |an aim to lower individual firm efficiency and competitiveness.33 At the time
this report was written, Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street – known as the“Big Three”34 index fund families – are the top three or are among the top
four institutional shareholders for the behemoth US-based, publicly-tradedretailers Walmart, Kroger, Costco and Amazon.35 Vanguard and State Street
are also among the top three institutional shareholders of Ahold Delhaize(#9); 36 Vanguard is the top institutional shareholder in Carrefour37 (#5) andBlackrock is the top institutional shareholder in Tesco (#7).38 The value of thefunds “under management” by the Big Three is staggering and muddles themeaning of “public” in the definition of “publicly-traded.” At the close of2020, Blackrock had US$8.7 trillion under management; 39 Vanguard US$7.1
trillion;40 and State Street was managing US$3.5 trillion.41

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 121 |Notes
1Anon., “The rise of the rebel brands,” The Economist, Vol. 438,
# 9236, 13 March 2021: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2021/03/11/the-rise-of-the-rebel-brands .
2 J. Stern, C. Mims, N. Nguyen, W. Rothman, “The Tech
That Will Change Your Life in 2021,” Wall Street Journal, 02 Jan
2021:https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-that-will-changeyour-life-in-2021-11609519215.
3 From Einer Elhauge, “The Causal Mechanisms of Horizontal Shareholding,” Ohio State Law Journal 1 (2021): https://ssrn.
com/abstract=3370675: “…common shareholders can anddo alter the behavior of corporations in a way that reflects
their interests in the commonly-held firms.”
4 Euromonitor International, “Food and Drink e-Commercein India – Country Report,” February 2021.
5 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN), “COVID-19
Accelerates the Growth of India’s Online Grocery Market,” Report # IN2021-0067, 20 May 2021: https://apps.fas.
usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=COVID-19%20Accelerates%20the%20
Growth%20of%20India%27s%20Online%20Grocery%20
Market_Mumbai_India_05-17-2021.pdf .
6 Ashish Kumar, “Indian kirana stores will continue to be
dominated by standalone shops, this time around with an
online avatar,” Economic Times (India), 13 December 2020:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sme-sector/indian-kirana-stores-will-continue-to-be-dominated-bystandalone-shops-this-time-around-with-an-online-avatar/
articleshow/79692171.cms?from=mdr. In Mumbai 2019,
Kumar co-founded Near.Store, an app that allows small
shops to display inventory on-line and to accept on-line
payments.
7 Anon., “Food and grocery retailers to report 10% revenue
growth in FY20: report,” Mint, 18 March 2021: https://www.
livemint.com/industry/retail/food-and-grocery-retailers-toreport-10-revenue-growth-in-fy20-report-11616050527487.
html .
8 Ashish Kumar, “Indian kirana stores will continue to be
dominated by standalone shops, this time around with an
online avatar,” Economic Times (India), 13 December 2020:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sme-sector/indian-kirana-stores-will-continue-to-be-dominated-bystandalone-shops-this-time-around-with-an-online-avatar/
articleshow/79692171.cms?from=mdr. In Mumbai 2019,
Kumar co-founded Near.Store, an app that allows small
shops to display inventory on-line and to accept on-line
payments.
9 Anon., “Tata Digital buys 64% stake in BigBasket,” Economic Times (India), 28 May 2021: https://economictimes.
indiatimes.com/tech/startups/tata-says-acquired-a-maj o r i t y- s ta k e - i n - o n l i n e - g ro c e r y- b i g b a s k e t / a rt i c l e show/83029366.cms .
10 Mike Isaac and Vindu Goel, “Facebook Invests $5.7 Billion
in Indian Internet Giant Jio,” New York Times, 21 April 2020:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/technology/facebook-jio-india.html .
11 Dunzo blog, “Smart cities through the lanes of Dunzo,”
02 February 2021: https://blog.dunzo.com/smart-citiesthrough-the-lanes-of-dunzo-abce9a002fad
12 Benjamin Parkin, “Indian food delivery group Swiggy shifts
into groceries,” Financial Times, 09 August 2021: https://www.
ft.com/content/03936ef6-1525-43f1-ae45-009610d53a12.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20
21
22
23

24

25

26

Koh Ping Chong, “Groceries Lift China Group-Buying
Firm – Meituan has quickly become the country’s thirdmost-valuable internet company,” Wall Street Journal, 04
February 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/grocerieshelp-meituan-grow-into-one-of-chinas-biggest-tech-companies-11612348203; JD.com announced in December 2020
that it had invested $700 million in group-buying platform
Xingsheng Youxuan; see Meaghan Tobin and Louise Matsakis, “The cutthroat war to dominate China’s grocery delivery industry,” rest of world, 20 January 2021: https://restofworld.org/2021/chinas-grocery-delivery-war/ .
Anon., “Investors cannot get enough of Chinese e-grocers,”
Economist, 26 June 2021: https://www.economist.com/business/2021/06/24/investors-cannot-get-enough-of-chinesee-grocers .
James Kynge and Ryan McMorrow, “Pinduoduo defies
gravity with spending spree,” Financial Times, 25 June 2020:
https://www.ft.com/content/cf0a3bee-ec1e-4d08-a7e8f8449f1ba764
Anon., “Investors cannot get enough of Chinese e-grocers,”
Economist, 26 June 2021: https://www.economist.com/business/2021/06/24/investors-cannot-get-enough-of-chinesee-grocers .
Song Jingli, “Meituan plans grocery retail business expansion
to cover 1,000 cities and towns in China,” KrAsia, 04 September 2020: https://kr-asia.com/meituan-plans-grocery-retailbusiness-expansion-to-cover-1000-cities-in-china .
Commentary in China’s People’s Daily quoted in Chong KohPing, “Groceries Help Meituan Grow Into One of China’s
Biggest Tech Companies,” Wall Street Journal, 04 February 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/groceries-helpmeituan-grow-into-one-of-chinas-biggest-tech-companies-11612348203
Raymond Zhong, “China’s Tech Antitrust Campaign Snares
Meituan, a Food-Delivery Giant,” New York Times, 08 October 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/technology/china-meituan-antitrust-fine.html .
Jonathan Eley, “Europe’s biggest grocer keeps US stores on
its shopping list, Financial Times, 01 March 2021: https://www.
ft.com/content/409ec720-37a3-4b14-83b8-8bf9276d13c0 .
Ahold Delhaize annual report 2020, p. 18: https://www.
aholddelhaize.com/media/10566/annual-report-2020-fulllinks-2.pdf .
Grace Dean, “Walmart sells UK grocer Asda for $8.8 billion,”
Business Insider, 02 October 2021: https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-sells-asda-for-8-8-billion-2020-10 .
Warren Shoulberg, “With Asda Sale, Is Walmart’s Strategy
Shifting To America First Or America Only?” Forbes, 22 February 2021: https://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenshoulberg/2021/02/22/with-asda-sale-is-walmart-moving-toamerica-first-or-america-only/?sh=24e53d731bde .
Ben Dummet, “Morrisons Sold to Clayton, Dubilier & Ricefor $9.4 Billion in Frenzied Bidding War,” Wall Street Journal,
02 October 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/morrisonssold-to-clayton-dubilier-rice-for-9-4-billion-in-frenzied-bidding-war-11633175510.
Kalyeena Makortoff, “Sainsbury’s shares rise as it is tipped as
next takeover target,” The Guardian, 04 October 2021: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/04/morrisonsus-sell-off-assets-supply-chain-crisis-christmas-delivery.
Russell Redman, “Smart & Final to be acquired by Bodega Latina for $620 million,” Supermarket News, 13 May 2021:

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 122 |
27

28

29

30
31
32
33

https://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-financial/smartfinal-be-acquired-bodega-latina-620-million .
Russell Redman, “Amazon to nearly double online edible
grocery sales by 2026,” Supermarket News, 15 July 2021: https://www.supermarketnews.com/online-retail/amazon-nearly-double-online-edible-grocery-sales-2026 .
Russell Redman, “Amazon to nearly double online edible
grocery sales by 2026,” Supermarket News, 15 July 2021: https://www.supermarketnews.com/online-retail/amazon-nearly-double-online-edible-grocery-sales-2026 .
Russell Redman, “Amazon to nearly double online edible
grocery sales by 2026,” Supermarket News, 15 July 2021: https://www.supermarketnews.com/online-retail/amazon-nearly-double-online-edible-grocery-sales-2026 .
Dan Gallagher, “Why Amazon Is Getting More Physical,”Wall Street Journal, 19 Aug 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-amazon-is-getting-more-physical-11629405921.
Anonymous, “Walmart gets its bite back,” The Economist,
20 November 2021:https://www.economist.com/business/2021/11/20/walmart-gets-its-bite-backEiner Elhauge, “The Causal Mechanisms of Horizontal
Shareholding,” Ohio State Law Journal 1 (2021): https://ssrn.
com/abstract=3370675.
Einer Elhauge, “The Causal Mechanisms of Horizontal
Shareholding,” Ohio State Law Journal 1 (2021), pp. 73-74:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3370675.

34 Einer Elhauge, “The Causal Mechanisms of Horizontal
Shareholding,” Ohio State Law Journal 1 (2021), p. 7: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3370675.
35 According to Yahoo Finance’s “Holders” data within company profiles: https://finance.yahoo.com/ .
36 According to Ahold Delhaize web site: https://www.aholddelhaize.com/investors/shareholder-information /.
37 According to Yahoo Finance’s “Holders” data: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CA.PA/holders/ .
38 According to Tesco’s website: https://www.tescoplc.com/
investors/major-shareholders/ .
39 Blackrock 10-K SEC filing (annual report), 31 December 2020, p. 7: https://s23.q4cdn.com/834201599/files/
doc_financials/2020/q4/8d766820-903c-42f7-8472-0ed6f52e013e.pdf .
40 Vanguard news release, “Vanguard Announces Plans to
Launch Ultra-Short Bond ETF,” 19 January 2021: https://pressroom.vanguard.com/news/Press-Release-VanguardAnnounces-Plans-to-Launch-Ultra-Short-Bond-ETF-11921.
html .
41 State Street news release, “State Street Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2020 Financial Results,” 19 January 2021:
https://investors.statestreet.com/investor-news-events/press-releases/news-details/2021/State-Street-ReportsFourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2020-Financial-Results/default.aspx .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Fooddelivery
The Food Delivery sector refers to digital, on-demand platforms for ordering andpaying for prepared food and, increasingly, groceries and other retail items. Restaurants/retailers fill the orders and couriers deliver them to customers within aprescribed timeframe.
Last Mile / Last Link: World’s Biggest e-Commerce Food-Delivery Companies
Company (HQ)

Private or Publicly- 2020 Revenue
tradedUS$ Millions

9,604
Publicly-traded (HongFood Delivery1
Meituan (China) Kong, OTC in USA)
(Total revenue:
FY end 31 Dec. 2020
16,637)

Deliveroo (UK)

Publicly-traded(London, OTC inUSA)
FY end 31 Dec. 2020

5,2632

Uber Eats
Publicly-traded (USA, 3,9045(subsidiary
Mexico, Europe)of Uber) /FY end 31 Dec. 2020
Postmates (USA)Ele.me (China)“consolidated
subsidiary” of
Alibaba Group(acquired 2018)

Publicly-traded(Alibaba is tradedglobally)
FY end 31 March
2020

DoorDash (USA)Publicly-traded (USA) 2,8869
FY end 31 Dec. 2020

3,5938Business Focus / Notes
So-called super app service company: fooddelivery (restaurant and grocery); group buying;movie tickets; hotel and travel booking (withownership stake in hotels), crowdsourced
healthcare (until 2021), pet care.
Restaurant food delivery; posted a loss of US$309
million in 2020. 3 Amazon bought 16% of thecompany before its “disastrous” IPO, March 2021; 4
Delivery Hero owns 5%. Launched Deliveroo Hop– grocery delivery – in London in 2021.
Uber Eats acquired privately-held Postmates July
2020; divested Uber Eats India in exchange for9.9% ownership stake in Zomato; completed
acquisition of Cornershop Cayman – online
grocery delivery in Chile and Mexico – in June
2021.6 Delivery segment reported operating loss in
2020.7
Delivery of prepared (restaurant) food, groceries;
integrated with Koubei, Alibaba’s restaurant guide
platform. In 2021, both became part of Alibaba’s
new Lifestyle division, along with AutoNavi(mapping app) and Fliggy (travel app).
Food and grocery delivery in the USA, Australia,
Canada and Japan. Posted net loss of US$461
million in FY 2020.10

| 124 |Just Eat
Takeaway/ Grubhub(Netherlands)

Publicly-traded(London, Europe,
OTC in USA)FY end 31 Dec. 2020

2,85011 (includes
Just Eat’s 2020
revenue; excludes
Grubhub’s 2020
revenue of 1,800)

Publicly-traded (USA, 2,81913
Europe, London)
FY end 31 Dec. 2020

Delivery Hero
(Germany)

PrivateiFood (Brazil)

49415

Reporting forcalendar year 2020

Swiggy (India)

Zomato (India)(Uber has 9.99%
ownership stake)

PrivateFY end 31 March
2020

Publicly-traded(India); IPO July 2021.
FY end 31 March
2020

37516

37018

Delivers food and grocery. Takeaway bought Just
Eat (UK) in 2020 and Grubhub (USA) in 2021;
Delivery Hero owns 7.4%. Posted US$168 million
loss for the FY.12
Food, groceries, flowers, pharmaceuticals delivery;
operations in 50 countries; in 2020, acquired
Instashop (Middle East, North Africa), Honest
Food Company GmbH (virtual kitchens, Central
Europe) and Glovo’s Latin American food delivery
operations; grocery delivery via “DMarts” inMiddle East and Asia and via foodpanda inGermany; Prosus (tech investor giant) owns 27%.
Posted US$1,020 million operating loss in 2020.14
Food delivery in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia(joint venture with Delivery Hero), and Mexico.
Company is a subsidiary of Movile (Brazil), but
Just Eat Takeaway holds a 33.3% stake (Prosus
is Movile’s majority shareholder); acquired
SiteMercado (online grocery sales) in 2020.
Subsidiary of Bundl Technologies Private Limited;prepared food (restaurant) delivery; cloud kitchen;grocery delivery via Swiggy Go; reported loss of
US$508 million in 2020;17 Prosus (tech investor
giant) holds 40% stake in Bundl Technologies.
Prepared food (restaurant) delivery; reported lossof US$322 million;19 acquired Uber Eats India Jan.
2020; restaurant reservation booking; grocery
delivery; owns 9.3% of Grofers (grocery delivery);
supplier to restaurants via Zomato Hyperpure.

Source: ETC Group Notes: 1) Ownership stakes noted in the table reflect the situation in mid-November 2021. 2)
Differing fiscal-year reporting periods were unusually consequential due to the global coronavirus pandemic. App-based
food delivery usage increased when and where consumers experienced lockdowns; therefore, the financial impact of the
lockdowns may be unequally reflected in company revenues (e.g., companies with fiscal years running 01April 2019 to 31
March 2020 do not reflect the full ‘positive’ impact of the pandemic on business operations).

Historically, ETC Group has considered consumer-facing Food Retail the industrial food chain’s last link. Now, for the first time, we highlight companies
that cover the “last mile” – those that enlist couriers – who drive cars, ridemotorcycles or bikes – to deliver food into consumers’ hands at their homeor office door. The sector was revving up before the Covid-19 pandemic, but
2020 saw turbo-charged growth as food delivery became a frontline service
in the midst of lockdowns. Nonetheless, the sector’s pre-pandemic features
and trends still hold:•

Rapid Consolidation: Ownership is a moving target as companies jostle for regional hegemony and buy/sell/swap stakes in competitors.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 125 |••Worker Exploitation: The ambiguous legal status of couriers is integral to the on-demand business model. Along with related “sharing
economy” sectors such as ride-hailing – also now firmly in the grasp of
Big Tech20 – food delivery has invited worker exploitation. Around theworld, governments and courts have only recently begun to address theissue.
Slow to Deliver Profits: Venture capital and technology investment
has fueled the sector, but companies have yet to deliver profits – even in
the sector-friendly circumstances of the global pandemic when delivery
became more necessity than convenience. Tweaking the business model
to move toward profitability – most prominently by adding grocery delivery – is underway. (User-data is its own reward, however, and gives
companies unprecedented access to customers’ preferences and, literally, their tastes.)On-demand, platform-based food delivery is part of urban e-commerce: it
doesn’t exist in the absence of smartphone apps, Internet connectivity andpopulation density. The original business model, a 21st century invention,
looks similar in cities around the world: start-up companies created apps forordering prepared food and partnered with restaurants that pay a commission to have their menus represented on the apps;21 customers then download the apps, order and pay for food and delivery using a credit card or amobile payment app (e.g., Alipay, Apple Pay); couriers – whose (multiple)
deliveries and routes are chosen by algorithms and guided by GPS for maximum efficiency – bring the orders from the restaurant to the customers
within an agreed-upon timeframe.
Delivery platforms claim to be helping local businesses connect to customers, who benefit from the “affordable convenience” of eating-in (without
meal prep), all while offering “meaningful work” to “underemployed” people drawn to the flexibility of the gig economy.22 Low overheads is integral
to the business model with restaurant workers supplying the food and thedelivery labour force – the “dashers,” “riders” or “partners” – considered
independent contractors instead of employees (and therefore not eligible forsocial security, injury compensation or other benefits).
From the beginning, the model has been, explicitly, less about food service
and more about logistics, e-commerce (including customer-data collection)
and attracting technology-focused venture capital investors.23 Competitionin the new sector quickly heated up: some players were gobbled up, andthose that remained raised even more investment cash – while buying andswapping stakes in competitors. The kings of e-retail, Amazon and Alibaba,
both invested (see table).

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 126 |Trends: chew on thisDelivering Revenue but No Profit: The business model’s mostglaring flaw – though not its most egregious one – is that it isn’t financially profitable. So far, in most places in the world, the cost of
doing business exceeds revenue (though the additional value of thetrove of exploitable data on customer tastes and habits is great24). A
review of company annual reports makes the lack of profitability abundantly clear (see table above, “Last Link/Last Mile”, and accompanying
endnotes, where seven of the 10 companies finished fiscal year 2020
clearly in the red by US$ hundred-millions or even billions25). Analysts
note that the sector’s losses weren’t necessarily problematic, at leastat first, because profitability wasn’t the goal: the companies were “justtrying to get traction for their start-ups, all of which needed to attract
customers quickly to establish a dominant market position, elbow out
competitors and justify their soaring valuations.”26 In practice, jostlingfor dominance meant offering deep discounts to customers – to getthem on the apps and to keep them there – even when that necessitated a “cash burn.”27 Persistent losses have led platforms to emphasize
metrics other than revenue to demonstrate success and keep investors
excited, such as their increasing numbers of deliveries or app downloads or growing “gross transaction values” (which basically means
more folk splurging on the large pizza, ending up with bigger tabs).
There may be “a limit to how far you can push the economics of aplatform to make it work”28 – as some analysts posit with regard tofood delivery – but companies haven’t reached it yet. In an attempt
to move toward profitability, platforms have tweaked their algorithms– sometimes with disastrous results for couriers29 – to try to get moredeliveries out faster; they’ve created “cloud” or “ghost” kitchens,
which are closed to diners but where meals from several restaurant
menus can be prepared in one space for more efficient pick-up and delivery; and, in some cases, they’ve begun to raise fees – commissions
for restaurants and delivery prices for diners. Across the board, they’ve
expanded their delivery offerings to include groceries and other items(see table).

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 127 |The Gig is Up? Will Courier Conditions Improve? What may ultimately
put the brakes on food delivery is the sector’s inhumane and (possibly) untenable labour practices, though the promise of advanced automation may
mute the calls for change. With little or no protections or perks, couriers put
themselves in danger (by speeding, breaking traffic laws, travelling throughhigh-crime areas) rather than risk being fined or fired if they don’t deliver often enough and fast enough.30 While gig work is supposed to allow people tochoose how much and when they work, the reality is that the platforms arein control. Zomato, for example, can disable the account of any courier whoturns down three delivery jobs in one day.31 Couriers in China can be fined
US$300 (about a week’s wages) if a dissatisfied customer sends an email
complaint to the platform.32 Couriers have begun protesting – sometimes
in acts of desperation33 – and self-organizing, in both the global North andSouth.34
There are some indications that governments may be ready to enact labour
reforms and put an end to the platforms’ free ride. In July 2021, China’s
antitrust regulator issued a directive to delivery platforms to improve how
they treat couriers, including by reducing the demand for fast deliveries.35 In
September, the country’s delivery giants – Meituan and ele.me (Alibaba) –promised to stop forcing couriers to register as self-employed business owners.36 The European Commission is now considering ways to improve theworking conditions of platform workers, generally, and food delivery workers specifically.37 Just months after Spain announced it will require platforms
to recognize delivery workers as employees – the first EU country to do so– Deliveroo announced it was ceasing operations there.38 Deliveroo’s homecountry UK, on the other hand, seems to have settled the issue the otherway: delivery workers are self-employed, UK courts have affirmed.39 In theUSA, New York City became the first to pass legislation to regulate the fooddelivery sector, establishing minimum pay and other worker protections.40
Will food delivery survive this “crisis of technology crashing into reality”?41 It’s hard to root for its survival, especially considering some of theother problems the sector has created, including dasher-dodging on overcrowded city sidewalks,42 significant increases in trash from takeaway packaging,43 and the deskilling of an overburdened labour force that is constantly
controlled (directed and surveilled) by the platforms.44 But as more and more
people move to cities (beyond the more than 55% of world population thatis already urbanized45), income inequality will likely result in both increased
demand for the convenience of food/grocery delivery and a desperate workforce willing to deliver food in order to eat. As others have noted, reeling in
corporate greed in the food/grocery delivery sector will require both collective action and changes to employment laws.46

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 128 |Notes
1
Meituan press release, p. 2: https://www1.hkexnews.hk/
listedco/listconews/sehk/2021/0326/2021032600589.pdf.
2 Sam Shead, “Amazon-backed Deliveroo reveals it lost $309
million in 2020 ahead of IPO,” CNBC, 08 March 2021:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/deliveroo-reveals-itlost-309-million-in-2020-ahead-of-london-ipo.html.
3 Sam Shead, “Amazon-backed Deliveroo reveals it lost $309
million in 2020 ahead of IPO,” CNBC, 08 March 2021:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/deliveroo-reveals-itlost-309-million-in-2020-ahead-of-london-ipo.html .
4 Hanna Ziady, “London needed a win. Instead it got its worst
IPO in history,” CNN Business, 02 April 2021: https://www.
cnn.com/2021/04/02/investing/london-deliveroo-ipo/index.html.
5 Uber SEC filing, Form 10-K, 2020 annual report, “Delivery
Revenue:”https://sec.report/Document/0001543151-21-000014/#idf696d1c1f2d4ccb82230a3b241ab897_40. Regarding the acquisition of Postmates, which was completed 01 December
2020, Uber’s Form 10-K states: “For the period from December 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020, Postmates contributed an immaterial amount of revenue and loss before taxes.”
6 Jessica Bursztynsky, “Uber is buying the rest of grocery delivery start-up Cornershop,” CNBC, 21 June 2021: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/21/uber-acquiring-remaining-stake-in-grocery-delivery-start-up-cornershop.html .
7 See Uber press release, 10 February 2021: https://investor.
uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2021/
Uber-Announces-Results-for-Fourth-Quarter-and-FullYear-2020/default.aspx .
8 Alibaba Group 2020 annual report, p. 137: https://doc.irasia.
com/listco/hk/alibabagroup/annual/2020/ar2020.pdf. Alibaba did not report ele.me’s revenue/loss separately.
9 DoorDash, Inc., Form 10-K, 2020, p. 71: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001792789/628c327556ed-4bc8-a246-20e7c40742ce.pdf. Note: “…we haveincurred net losses in each year since our founding, we anticipate increasing expenses in the future, and we may not
be able to maintain or increase profitability in the future.
We incurred a net loss of $204 million, $667 million, and$461 million in the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019,and 2020, respectively, and, as of December 31, 2019, and2020, we had an accumulated deficit of $1.2 billion and $1.6
billion, respectively. We expect our costs will increase overtime and our losses to continue as we expect to invest significant additional funds towards growing our business andoperating as a public company.”
10 DoorDash, Inc., Form 10-K, 2020, p. 71: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001792789/628c327556ed-4bc8-a246-20e7c40742ce.pdf.
11 Toby Sterling, “Just Eat Takeaway.com sees growth in 2021
even as pandemic eases,” Reuters, 10 March 2021: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-just-eat-takeaway-results/justeat-takeaway-com-sees-growth-in-2021-even-as-pandemiceases-idUSKBN2B20IU .
12 Just Eat Takeaway.com annual report, 2020, p. 161. Reported
loss for the period was €147 million before taxes.
13 Delivery Hero annual report, 2020, p. 58: https://ir.deliveryhero.com/download/companies/delivery/Annual%20
Reports/DE000A2E4K43-JA-2020-EQ-E-01.pdf .
14 Delivery Hero annual report, 2020, p. 58. Delivery Hero reported a €894.2 million operating loss in FY ending 31 December 2020.

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23
24

iFood is a Brazilian subsidiary of Movile, whose majority
shareholder is Prosus. Prosus is a private company and does
not report iFood’s revenue separately. Just Eat Takeaway
holds a 33% stake in the company. In its 2020 annual report(p. 213), Just Eat Takeaway reported on iFood’s financial performance for the calendar year 2020 and reported revenueof €433 million: https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/
takeaway-corporatewebsite-dev/just-eat-takeawaycom-annual-report-2020.pdf .
Kritti Bhalla, “Swiggy reports nearly three-fold increasein annual revenue, in neck and neck race with Zomato,”
Business Insider, 13 August 2021: https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/swiggy-reports-nearlythree-fold-increase-in-annual-revenue-in-neck-and-neckrace-with-zomato/articleshow/85233393.cms.
Swiggyreported revenue of ₹2,776 crore, but reported loss of ₹3,768(10,000,000 = 1 crore).
Kritti Bhalla, “Swiggy reports nearly three-fold increase inannual revenue, in neck and neck race with Zomato,” Business Insider, 13 August 2021: https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/swiggy-reports-nearly-threefold-increase-in-annual-revenue-in-neck-and-neck-racewith-zomato/articleshow/85233393.cms. Swiggy reported
revenue of ₹2,776 crore, but reported loss of ₹3,768 crore(10,000,000 = 1 crore).
Kritti Bhalla, “Swiggy reports nearly three-fold increase inannual revenue, in neck and neck race with Zomato,” Business Insider, 13 August 2021: https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/swiggy-reports-nearly-threefold-increase-in-annual-revenue-in-neck-and-neck-racewith-zomato/articleshow/85233393.cms. Zomato reported
revenue of ₹2,742 crore, but reported loss of ₹2,386 crore(10,000,000 = 1 crore).
Kritti Bhalla, “Swiggy reports nearly three-fold increase inannual revenue, in neck and neck race with Zomato,” Business Insider, 13 August 2021: https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/swiggy-reports-nearly-threefold-increase-in-annual-revenue-in-neck-and-neck-racewith-zomato/articleshow/85233393.cms. Zomato reported
revenue of ₹2,742 crore, but reported loss of ₹2,386 crore(10,000,000 = 1 crore).
Evgeny Morozov, “From Airbnb to city bikes, the ‘sharing
economy’ has been seized by big money,” The Guardian, 27
November 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/27/airbnb-city-bikes-sharing-economybig-money .
Some apps, such as Grubhub (now owned by Just Eat Takeaway.com), started out as menu aggregators and ordering
platforms – with restaurants paying a fee to have their menu
on the app – and later grew into full-fledged delivery companies.
DoorDash founders explained their mission and vision forthe company in 2013: Andy, Stanley, Evan, Tony, “The DoorDash Story,” Medium, 04 October 2013: https://medium.
com/@DoorDash/the-doordash-story-b370c2bb1e5f. Seealso, Cory Schöder, “How DoorDash Became the Most
Successful Food Delivery Service in the US,” 21 May 2021:
https://latana.com/post/doordash-success-story/.
Andy, Stanley, Evan, Tony, “The DoorDash Story,” Medium, 04 October 2013: https://medium.com/@DoorDash/the-doordash-story-b370c2bb1e5f.
An article on the website of Invisibly, an organization promoting the monetization of personal data by individuals,

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 129 |

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

provides a quantitative analysis showing how companies
value personal data. See, Invisibly, “How Much is Your Data
Worth? The Complete Breakdown for 2021,” 13 July 2021:
https://www.invisibly.com/learn-blog?category-valueOfData#filter .
Of the three companies that may be turning a profit in fooddelivery, iFood is private and does not make public its profits/losses; Meituan, the world’s largest food delivery company, appears to have become profitable for the first time at
the end of 2019, according to Ryan McMorrow, Meituan Dianping shows route to food delivery profits,” Financial Times,
15 December 2019; Alibaba does not report ele.me’s profits/losses separately.
Kevin Roose, “Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy,”
New York Times, 08 June 2021: https://www.nytimes.
com/2021/06/08/technology/farewell-millennial-lifestyle-subsidy.html .
Suneera Tandon, “Amazon’s expansion in food delivery
service to up competition, cash burn: Report,” Mint, 10
March 2021: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/amazons-expansion-in-food-delivery-service-to-up-competition-cash-burn-report-11615354155908.html.
Analyst Dan Thomas quoted in Natasha Bernal, “Amazon
took a chunk of Deliveroo. Then things got interesting,”
Wired (UK), 11 February 2021: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/deliveroo-pandemic-amazon .
Zomato, for example, tweaked its algorithm without warning its deliverers, who were sent far afield from their usual
delivery zones, resulting in lower wages and, in some cases,
exposure to crime. See Nilesh Christopher, “A tiny tweak to
Zomato’s algorithm led to lost delivery riders, stolen bikes
and missed wages,” Rest of world, 07 October 2021: https://
restofworld.org/2021/how-a-small-change-to-zomatos-algorithm-created-havoc-for-delivery-riders/ .
Jiayun Feng, “Food delivery giants Ele.me and Meituan
promise to stop treating delivery workers like disposablegarbage. Sort of.,” SupChina, 22 September 2021: https://supchina.com/2021/09/22/ele-me-and-meituan-fine-wellstop-treating-delivery-workers-like-disposable-garbagesort-of/ .
Nilesh Christopher, “A tiny tweak to Zomato’s algorithm
led to lost delivery riders, stolen bikes and missed wages,”
Rest of world, 07 October 2021: https://restofworld.org/2021/
how-a-small-change-to-zomatos-algorithm-created-havocfor-delivery-riders/.
Emily Feng, “For China’s Overburdened Delivery Workers,
The Customer — And App — Is Always Right,” NPR, 01 December 2020: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/01/938876826/
for-chinas-overburdened-delivery-workers-the-customerand-app-is-always-right .
In January 2021, a courier working for both Meituan and ele.
me in China set himself on fire to protest not being paid his
rightful wages. See Yaun Yang and Ryan McMorrow, “Chinese courier sets fire to himself in protest over unpaid Alibaba wages,” Financial Times, 12 January 2021: https://www.
ft.com/content/d6189ee8-9aea-41dd-a412-b8daba9cacf2 .
Satyavrat Krishnakumar and Amay Korjan, “Worker-Led Alternatives: A Line of Hope for New Platform Futures,” Bot

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45
46

Populi, 27 October 2021: https://botpopuli.net/worker-ledalternatives-a-line-of-hope-for-new-platform-futures/.
Jiayun Feng, “Food delivery giants Ele.me and Meituan
promise to stop treating delivery workers like disposablegarbage. Sort of.,” SupChina, 22 September 2021: https://supchina.com/2021/09/22/ele-me-and-meituan-fine-wellstop-treating-delivery-workers-like-disposable-garbagesort-of/ .
Jiayun Feng, “Food delivery giants Ele.me and Meituan
promise to stop treating delivery workers like disposablegarbage. Sort of.,” SupChina, 22 September 2021: https://supchina.com/2021/09/22/ele-me-and-meituan-fine-wellstop-treating-delivery-workers-like-disposable-garbagesort-of/ .
See European Commission press release, “Protecting people working through platforms: Commission launches
second-stage consultation of social partners,” 15 June 2021:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/
IP_21_2944 .
Deliveroo did not cite the impending legislation as the reason for its decision. Jasper Jolly, “Deliveroo unveils plans topull out of Spain in wake of ‘rider law,’” The Guardian, 30 July
2021: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/30/
deliveroo-unveils-plans-to-pull-out-of-spain-in-wake-of-rider-law .
Paul Sandle, “UK Court of Appeal confirms Deliveroo riders are self employed,” Reuters, 24 June 2021: https://www.
reuters.com/world/uk/uk-court-appeal-confirms-deliverooriders-are-self-employed-2021-06-24/ .
Samantha Subin, “New York City passes bills offering protections to food delivery workers,” CNBC, 23 September
2021: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/23/new-york-citypasses-protections-for-food-delivery-workers.html .
Mark A. Cohen quoted in Winnie Hu and Chelsia Rose
Marcius, “15-Minute Grocery Delivery Has Come to N.Y.C.
Not Everyone Is Happy.,” New York Times, 09 November
2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/nyregion/online-grocery-delivery-nyc.html .
Mark A. Cohen quoted in Winnie Hu and Chelsia Rose
Marcius, “15-Minute Grocery Delivery Has Come to N.Y.C.
Not Everyone Is Happy.,” New York Times, 09 November
2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/nyregion/online-grocery-delivery-nyc.html .
For example, Liz Farquhar, “Working from Home and Food
Delivery Boom Fuel Newcastle Garbage Glut,” ABC Regional
News, 12 March 2021: https://www.abc.net.au/news/202103-12/food-delivery-boom-fuelling-newcastles-rubbish-spike/13241842 .
Satyavrat Krishnakumar and Amay Korjan, “Worker-Led Alternatives: A Line of Hope for New Platform Futures,” Bot
Populi, 27 October 2021: https://botpopuli.net/worker-ledalternatives-a-line-of-hope-for-new-platform-futures/ .
World Health Organization fact sheet, “Urban Health,”
29 October 2021: https://www.who.int/news-room/factsheets/detail/urban-health .
Satyavrat Krishnakumar and Amay Korjan, “Worker-Led Alternatives: A Line of Hope for New Platform Futures,” Bot
Populi, 27 October 2021: https://botpopuli.net/worker-ledalternatives-a-line-of-hope-for-new-platform-futures/ .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

The (bio)digitaltakeover of food and agriculture
ETC’s ongoing research shines a critical light on the world’s looming dependence on Big Tech across the Industrial Food Chain. It also looks at the
impact that the digitalization of agriculture is already having on corporate
consolidation, as well as the wellbeing, autonomy and knowledge of small
farmers and peasants across the world and thus on food sovereignty. Hereare a few tasters showing what’s currently on the worrying menu.
From Food Chains to Blockchains
Cross-sectoral convergence and digital dependence are emerging in parallel,
and this is especially evident in the attempt to impose digital blockchains
along the entire industrial agrifood chain, with the stated aim of transparent
and secure tracking.

Blockchains are digital ledgers that are capable of tracking a contract
or an activity with the use of computers via the internet in such a way
as to reassure the parties involved that the contract or procedure has
been carried out. Blockchains can be used by bankers and drug cartels
alike (among many others) to reduce transaction costs and increase
confidence that the arrangement has been completed.

Virtually all of Big Ag – in particular the largest grain and food commodity traders – have signed on to Covantis, the most advanced of these new
blockchain pacts. Even more ambitious is the TraceHarvest Network, developed in collaboration with Bayer, which emphasizes traceability – fromseed to stomach. In this case, traceability is explicitly seen as a way to thwart‘buy local’ trends.1 With blockchain tracing, you can supposedly “know yourfarmer” from half a world away – food miles be damned. TraceHarvest alsobuilds in the possibility for “smart contracts” – self-executing, automated| 131 |agreements that govern food market transactions, taking autonomy awayfrom farmers and consumers and handing it over to those who write andstructure the code for these digital agreements.
Biodigital Barons
Faced with expiring patents, herbicide-resistant weeds and efforts by somegovernments to rein in chemical toxins and climate-changing greenhousegases (GHG), Big Ag and Big Tech giants are developing supposedly “green”
products based on new proprietary genetic and digital technologies. These
include RNA-based pesticide sprays, “CRISPR” crops and animals, alt-proteins and new microbial pesticides and fertilizers that rely on genetic manipulations – including gene editing. To win consumer acceptance and escaperegulatory oversight, industry insists that gene-edited plants and animals are
not GMOs (genetically modified organisms) arguing they may not involvethe integration of foreign DNA. But gene editing can still be used to introduce new genetic sequences, and even the deletion or change of a single
base point can have uncertain impacts on how an organism functions.

RNA interference (RNAi) pesticides are designed to kill certain
plants or insects by switching off or “silencing” genes essential for theorganism’s survival.

Gene editing or genome editing techniques are a form of genetic
engineering (GE) used to alter the genetic material of an organism,
plant or animal by inserting, deleting or changing the DNA at a specific target site in the genome. This may cause a series of unexpected changes in the chromosomes. CRISPR is the most well-known
among today’s gene editing techniques (CRISPR stands for Clustered
Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats).

Taking advantage of the climate crisis
The energy-guzzling and GHG-belching fertilizer industry is joining the seed
and pesticide firms in devising ways to monetize the climate crisis, burnishing their so-called Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG)
credentials along the way. Under the umbrella of digital ag services, Big Ag
and Big Tech giants are developing carbon credit schemes for farmers – andall of the verification methods depend on Big Data, of course. Participationin these schemes helps ensure technological “lock-ins” – that is, farmers andResearch by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 132 |end-users are obliged to surrender their own data in order to gain access toan expanded menu of proprietary ag inputs and digital services, potentially through multi-year contracts and for guaranteed prices and carbon payments.
The world’s largest fertilizer corporations are also touting so-called sustainable ammonias for nitrogen fertilizer production (using renewable energy
sources or relying on carbon-capture technologies during production). However, promotion of these “green” fertilizers conveniently ignores the resulting environmental damage when they are applied to farmland, including nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions.
Big Tech meets Telecom meets Big Ag
Agricultural drones, sensors and automated farm machinery are as useful as
rocks unless they are connected to the Internet. So, for example, Deere &Company, the largest player in Machinery for Big Ag, has expressed interestin expanding rural Internet connectivity by partnering with telecom giant
AT&T in North America,2 while other telecom service providers like Verizon
and T-Mobile have championed the role of 5G (fifth generation broadband
cellular networks) in the future of farming.3,4 China, with more than 500
million 5G users, has the largest 5G network in the world and is promoting“smart farms” running on the 5G network.5
Satellites are touted as being doubly useful: not only do they enable digital
agriculture, but they will also, purportedly, bring Internet connectivity to rural areas across the globe. Big Tech is therefore investing in Low Earth Orbit
satellite constellations to “connect the unconnected” and close “the rural
broadband gap.”6
These operational satellites (especially Low Earth Orbits) also require groundstations that are costly to build and maintain.7 Data processing and storage
add to the cost of satellite operation. Cloud-computing service providers
have jumped at the opportunity to land a piece of the market and now offer
satellite operators the option to use ground stations on a ‘pay-per-use’ orsubscription basis, reducing their capital expenditure.8
Big Tech’s forays further out into space have similar critical implications forthe future of food and agriculture systems. In 2020, Morgan Stanley estimated that the global space industry could generate revenue of more than US$1
trillion or more in 2040, up from US$350 billion in 2020; satellite broadband
will account for half of the projected growth.9

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 133 |Data crunching driving new space race
According to estimates by the Union of Concerned Scientists, there
were about 6,000 satellites circling Earth’s orbit in April 2020, of
which less than half were operational10 (the rest are space junk!). Morethan half of the working satellites were launched for commercial purposes: 11 61% for communications (like satellite TV, Internet of Things
connectivity and Internet) and 27% for Earth observation.12 Lowcost (or free) satellite imagery is usually low- or medium-resolution;higher-resolution images – key to digital agriculture – are costly, andsuch large-scale data-crunching relies on Big Tech’s AI algorithms andcloud-computing capacity.13
Amazon runs the “Earth on AWS” programme through which it hosts
numerous satellite data sets, while Google hosts more than 600 publicsatellite, weather, population and other data sets through its Earth Engine platform.14 Planet Labs, an Earth imaging company based in San
Francisco, calls itself the “Bloomberg Terminal for Earth data”15 andowns approximately 15% of commercial satellites, collecting ~25 terabytes of data every day.16 About one quarter of Planet Lab’s revenue
comes from data related to agriculture and the company expects that
contribution to grow in the coming years.17
In September 2021, Corteva Agriscience signed a three-year agreement to use Planet Labs’ satellite imaging products, with which it was
already monitoring about 600,000 fields.18 Other major Big Ag players
such as Bayer, BASF and Syngenta are also using Planet Labs’ technology, as is the U.S. Department of Agriculture.19 Planet Labs is also partof The European Carbon+ Farming Coalition, a World Economic Forum-led coterie of Big Ag players pushing “climate-smart” agriculture
practices, along with BASF, Bayer, COPA-COGECA, CropIn, European
Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF), Yara International ASA,
Zurich Insurance Group and others.20 In 2021, Planet Labs started trading on the New York Stock Exchange after a SPAC merger21 backed by
Google and BlackRock, among other investors.22
Both Microsoft (via Azure Orbital) and Amazon have entered the“GSaaS” (Ground Station as a Service) market, enabling satellite operators to communicate and control their satellites and process the datawith their AI services.23
Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to send 42,000 satellites into space in thenext few decades and, as of early January 2022, it had already launchedmore than 1,900 Starlink satellites.24 In October 2020, Microsoft partnered with SpaceX to connect its Azure cloud computing network to
the Starlink satellite Internet service.25 Competing with SpaceX is AmaResearch by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 134 |zon, which plans to launch 3,236 satellites under its “Project Kuiper;”26
Amazon acquired Facebook’s satellite Internet team in 2021.27 Similarly, China’s state-owned telecommunications carriers plan to launchabout 10,000 low-Earth orbit satellites in the next few years.28 India’s
telecom giant Bharti Group and the government of the United Kingdom invested in OneWeb, another satellite Internet company, which
has already signed agreements with US telecom giant AT&T.29

Deep Sea Cable Cartels“People think that data is in the cloud, but it’s
not… it’s in the ocean.” – Jayne Stowell, Strategic
Negotiator, Global Infrastructure at Google30
Despite these leaps into space, Internet infrastructure is still largely madepossible by underwater cables criss-crossing the oceans: Big Tech is consolidating its power and influence in both the clouds and the seas.

Submarine cable culture
As of 2019, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon owned or leased
more than half of the undersea bandwidth, earlier the domain of pureplay telecom companies.31 In June 2021, Google announced a plan tobuild a new subsea cable, dubbed Firmina, which would connect theeast coast of the U.S. and Las Toninas in Argentina, with landings in
Brazil and Uruguay.32 Earlier in 2021, Google and Facebook had announced they would jointly fund two new undersea Internet cables,
running from the US West Coast to Indonesia and Singapore.33 In amove seen as countering Western and Indian dominance in telecommunications infrastructure, China is also installing massive networksof submarine cables for its “Digital Silk Road” project that aims to connect the country to its “BRI” (Belt and Road Initiative) partners – 140+
countries across the globe, including more than 40 in Sub SaharanAfrica.34

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 135 |Notes
1See, for example, Bayer’s Stan Dotson present the advantages of the TraceHarvest platform. He argues that traceability via blockchain can counteract “buy local” trends andhelp companies overcome “trust challenges” and “consumer backlash.” BlockApps, Bushel, Roger, and Bayer, “TraceHarvest Industry Meeting with Bushel, Roger and Bayer
Crop Science (March 2021),” 23 March 2021: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=OqpAJlPciRs .
2 Nilay Patel, “John Deere Turned Tractors into Computers— What’s Next? CTO Jahmy Hindman on farming, data,
and right to repair,” The Verge, 15 June 2021: https://www.
theverge.com/22533735/john-deere-cto-hindman-decoderinterview-right-to-repair-tractors .
3 Poornima Apte, “How 5G will impact the future of farming,” Verizon, n. d.: https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/articles/s/how-5g-will-impact-the-future-of-farming/ .
4 T-Mobile for Business paid post (advertising), “With Tomorrow’s Mobile Network, A Fruitful Forecast for Farmers,”
Forbes, 01 August 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tmobile/2019/08/01/with-tomorrows-mobile-network-a-fruitful-forecast-for-farmers/?sh=6c46563f4012 .
5 Iris Deng, “China targets 2 million installed 5G base stations
this year, expanding world’s biggest next-generation mobile network, as 6G preparations push ahead” South China
Morning Post, 09 March 2022: https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3169832/china-targets-2-million-installed-5gbase-stations-year-expanding .
6 See Starlink website: https://www.starlink.com/connecting-the-unconnected .
7 Anon., “Market perspectives of Ground Segment as a Service (GSaaS),” PWC, October 2020: https://www.pwc.fr/
fr/assets/files/pdf/2020/11/en-france-pwc-space-practice-research-paper-gsaas.pdf .
8 Leslie D’Monte, “Cloud computing is betting on outerspace,” Livemint, 05 October 2020: https://www.livemint.
com/technology/tech-news/cloud-computing-is-bettingon-outer-space-11601816394602.html .
9 Morgan Stanley, “Space: Investing in the Final Frontier,” 24July 2020: https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/investing-in-space.
10 Therese Wood, “Visualizing All of Earth’s Satellites: Who
Owns Our Orbit?” Visual Capitalist, 20 October 2020: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-all-of-earths-satellites/ .
11 Therese Wood, “Visualizing All of Earth’s Satellites: Who
Owns Our Orbit?” Visual Capitalist, 20 October 2020: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-all-of-earths-satellites/.
12 Therese Wood, “Visualizing All of Earth’s Satellites: Who
Owns Our Orbit?” Visual Capitalist, 20 October 2020:https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-all-of-earths-satellites/.
13 Gabriel Popkin, “Crunch time for data,” Nature, 31 May
2018: https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/
d41586-018-05268-w/d41586-018-05268-w.pdf.
14 Gabriel Popkin, “Crunch time for data,” Nature, 31 May
2018: https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/
d41586-018-05268-w/d41586-018-05268-w.pdf.
15 Planet, “Investor Presentation,” July 2021, p. 10: https://www.planet.com/investors/presentations/2021/investor-presentation-20210707.pdf.

16 Planet, “Investor Presentation,” July 2021, p. 7: https://www.
planet.com/investors/presentations/2021/investor-presentation-20210707.pdf.
17 Planet, “Investor Presentation,” July 2021, p. 19: https://www.planet.com/investors/presentations/2021/investor-presentation-20210707.pdf.
18 Elizabeth Elkin, “Corteva, Planet Labs to Advance Collection of Big Data on Farms,” Bloomberg, 02 September 2021:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-02/
corteva-planet-labs-to-advance-collection-of-big-data-onfarms.
19 Elizabeth Elkin, “Corteva, Planet Labs to Advance Collection of Big Data on Farms,” Bloomberg, 02 September 2021:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-02/
corteva-planet-labs-to-advance-collection-of-big-data-onfarms.
20 For more information and a list of partners, see World Economic Forum website: https://www.weforum.org/projects/eu-carbon-farming-coalition .
21 Michael Sheetz, “Satellite imagery company Planet goespublic, with $300 million ‘war chest’ after SPAC deal,” CNBC,
08 December 2021: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/satellite-imagery-company-planet-begins-trading-on-the-nyse.
html.
22 Michael Sheetz, “Satellite imagery company Planet
Labs is going public, backed by Google, BlackRock andMarc Benioff,” CNBC, 07 July 2021: https://www.cnbc.
com/2021/07/07/space-co-planet-labs-going-publicbacked-by-google-blackrock-benioff.html.
23 Yves Pitsch, “Introducing Azure Orbital: Process satellite data at cloud-scale,” Microsoft Azure, 22 September
2020:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/blog/introducing-azure-orbital-process-satellite-data-at-cloudscale/ .
24 Adam Mann and Tereza Pultarova, “Starlink: SpaceX’s satellite internet project,” Space, 06 January 2022: https://www.
space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html.
25 Michael Sheetz, “Microsoft partners with SpaceX to connect
Azure cloud to Musk’s Starlink satellite internet,” CNBC, 20
October 2020: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/20/microsoft-expands-its-space-business-pairing-its-azure-cloudwith-spacexs-starlink-internet.html.
26 Michael Sheetz, “Amazon plans to launch its first internet satellites in late 2022,” CNBC, 01 November 2021:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/01/amazons-project-kuiper-launching-first-internet-satellites-in-q4-2022.html.
27 Tyler Sonnemaker, “Amazon acquires Facebook’s satellite internet team, bolstering its efforts to compete with SpaceX,”
Business Insider, 14 July 2021: https://www.businessinsider.
in/tech/news/amazon-acquires-facebooks-satellite-internet-team-bolstering-its-efforts-to-compete-with-spacex/
articleshow/84395065.cms.
28 Frank Chen, “China launching state rival to Elon Musk’s
SpaceX,” Asia Times, 17 November 2020: https://asiatimes.
com/2020/11/china-launching-state-rival-to-elon-musksspacex/.
29 Thomas Seal, “Bharti-backed OneWeb’s AT&T satellite deal
challenges Musk in his backyard,” Business Standard, 09 September 2021: https://www.business-standard.com/article/
international/airtel-backed-oneweb-s-at-t-satellite-dealchallenges-musk-in-his-backyard-121090900448_1.html .
30 Adam Satariano, “How the Internet Travels Across Oceans,”
New York Times, 10 March 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 136 |interactive/2019/03/10/technology/internet-cables-oceans.
html.
31 Adam Satariano, “How the Internet Travels Across Oceans,”
New York Times, 10 March 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/
interactive/2019/03/10/technology/internet-cables-oceans.
html.
32 Frederic Lardinois, “Google announces the Firmina subsea cable between the US and Argentina,” TechCrunch, 09
June 2021: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/09/google-announces-the-firmina-subsea-cable-between-the-u-s-to-argentina/.
33 Isobel Asher Hamilton, “Facebook and Google are funding 2
new undersea internet cables running from the West Coast

to Singapore and Indonesia,” Business Insider, 30 March 2021:
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/facebook-andgoogle-are-funding-two-new-undersea-internet-cablesrunning-from-the-west-coast-to-singapore-and-indonesia/
articleshow/81758710.cms.
34 Mifrah Haq, “China builds Digital Silk Road in Pakistan to
Africa and Europe,” Nikkei Asia, 29 January 2021: https://asia.
nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/China-builds-DigitalSilk-Road-in-Pakistan-to-Africa-and-Europe. For a map of
the BRI countries, see: https://greenfdc.org/countries-ofthe-belt-and-road-initiative-bri/ .

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

Conclusions

Reclaiming Power to the People: Recognizing and challenging
corporate hegemony
ETC Group has traditionally monitored the “Top 10” corporations wielding
power in different sectors of the Industrial Food Chain. However, our mostrecent research, as outlined in this report – a “2020 snapshot” looking at
eleven key industrial agrifood sectors – shows that many of these Big Ag
sectors are now so “top heavy” that this is no longer possible. Some are now
controlled by just four to six dominant firms, enabling these companies towield enormous influence over markets, agricultural research and policy-development, and undermining food sovereignty.
We find that the Food Barons – including giant traders, food processors, grocers, technologists and financiers – are continuing to (re)design and refine
the Industrial Food Chain so that they can control it ever more effectively andleach ever more value away from producers and the natural environment.
They are swelling their own coffers, whilst providing poor quality and mostly unhealthy food to people and animals, destroying soils and biodiversity
along the way.
Today’s Industrial Food Chain enables the world’s biggest Food Barons tohold more economic power than the world’s 3.6 billion farm families, fishers and producers put together.1 This is deeply inefficient, perverse andextractive. Even World Bank economists acknowledge that the industrial
global food system’s US$8 trillion value is largely cancelled out by its negative externalities – costs that are conservatively estimated, by them, at over
US$6 trillion (including the costs associated with malnutrition, food loss andwaste, insufficient food safety, environmental degradation and greenhousegas emissions).2

| 138 |Our report also points to three developing multi-sectoral critical trends thatare enabling increased control along the Industrial Food Chain by Big Ag, Big
Data and Big Finance.
1. New technologies are enabling the Food Barons to further consolidate
their wealth and control, especially via the digitalization of agriculture:they are busily promoting digitally-based and genetic technologies
and schemes, including as planet-saving techno-fixes, to maximize
investment.
2. We observe the rising power of Asian (especially Chinese) Big Ag food
giants.
3. Finally, we find that the increasing involvement of asset managementcompanies in food and agriculture creates the semblance of competition, but diminishes actual competition.
With the help of philanthrocapitalists such as The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, the reach of Big Tech food and agriculture is now expanding topeasant and smallholder agriculture in the global South, from rural markets
through to urban mega-cities. Yet the new forms of control and value extraction that these technologies bring with them threaten to further usurp
farmer autonomy and decision making, while potentially facilitating and expediting a new era of land grabbing and new forms of control over small
farmers.
Reclaiming Power for peasants, communities and food sovereignty:
recognising and challenging corporate hegemony
In contrast to the increasing concentration and power of these giant Food
Barons, as detailed in this report, it is important to remember who feeds the
majority of the world. The Peasant Food Web still feeds the equivalent of
70% of the world’s people3 with less than 30% of the world’s land, waterand agricultural resources, even though the Food Barons are trying to extend their tentacles through further land- and water-grabs and technologicalappropriation of the commons. The Peasant Food Web provides an essential
counterweight to the grim tale of concentration and profiteering that we
detail in this report, through its inspiring diversification and proliferating territorial food initiatives that re-distribute and share the inherent power of sun,soil, seed and animals amongst people – providing food to billions.4
Food activists often focus themselves on intervening in certain sectors along
the chain. We decry Big Meat, Big Food and Big Biotech, denounce the big
grocery retailers’ unscrupulous treatment of workers, expose food processors’ unscrupulous manipulation of consumers, and demand an end to theuse and abuse of the planet’s resources. Our findings indicate that if we areto advance towards challenging the Industrial Food Chain in its entirety, we
also need stronger collective reactions from civil society, that go beyond
sector-specific campaigns, as well as enhancing solidarity between different
Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 139 |food and agriculture-related struggles and other movements, such as thosefighting for climate justice or critical of digitalization. We need to support
and collaborate to expand the Peasant Food Web, both to nourish the world
and to mount an effective challenge, returning power (and food) to peasants, rural and urban communities.
Here are ETC’s key proposals for action:
1 Support food sovereignty
It is urgent to recognize the vital importance of non-industrial food systems
in this time of food, health and environmental crises. Food Barons are notfeeding the world and it is not in their interest to do so. The Industrial Food
Chain – and every one of its links – function only if “food” is good financial
business. In direct contrast, feeding people is recognised as a real need and is
the core concern of the Peasant Web and food movements.
La Vía Campesina, the biggest organization of peasants, landless workers,
indigenous people, pastoralists, fishers, migrant farmworkers, small and medium-size farmers, rural women and peasant youth from around the world,sets a very clear path to be able to feed the world and rebuild the planet:food sovereignty and agroecology. Proposals from the grassroots – such as
the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty’s Nyéléni Process5 – aim to put farmers, growers, fishers, hunters and consumers back at
the heart of the food system and undo the power usurped by Food Barons
promoting industrial agriculture. Establishing new movements and civil society-led technology assessment spaces is also emerging as a cross-movement
demand.
2 Divest from the chain
Institutions under pressure from civil society have already succeeded in partly
directing funds away from tobacco, arms and fossil fuels on moral grounds.
Grassroots climate movements have successfully named fossil fuel majors
as the obstruction to meaningful climate action. Food movements should
follow suit: it is a logical next step to demand divestment from the Industrial
Food Chain.
With our research we aim to provide the information needed to understandwhere corporate power lies and where critical divestment is most needed.
We hope that it will provide a useful roadmap for a new wave of campaigns
to divest from the Industrial Food Chain. Schools, universities, pension
funds, local authorities and other public institutions holding investmentsin the identified companies should consider withdrawing their funds from
specific Food Barons and even from the entire destructive Industrial Food

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 140 |Chain, making a strategic switch to transparent and unconditional long-term
support for agroecology and food sovereignty. A pioneering example of suchaction is the Extractive Agriculture Investor Dataset developed by Adasina
Social Capital. Adasina uses ETC’s data from this report, to identify the mostharmful publicly traded companies for divestment from their portfolios.6
3 Technology horizon scanning, assessment, governance andsovereignty
Just as the threats posed by “Gene Giants” and pesticide companies wereapparent to peoples’ movements in earlier decades, it is now obvious that
the Food Barons – Big Data, Big Tech and Big Biotech firms – are increasingly
exercising a major cross-chain stranglehold on food systems as they deploy
a suite of powerful new technologies including blockchains, drones, ag robots, AI platforms, RNAi, alt-proteins, designer microbes and gene drives.
The participatory assessment of technologies based on precaution, as well as
the development and support for the implementation of socially and ecologically useful technologies, should be a top priority for governments, multilateral communities or fora, and civil society. Food governance bodies such as
the Committee on World Food Security and its High Level Panel of Experts
should prioritize horizon scanning, technology assessment and monitoringof new technologies that impact food systems.
The creation of bottom-up participatory technology assessment is especially crucial. Civil society Technology Assessment Platforms such as RED TECLA7 in Latin America or AfriTAP8 on the African continent are working tounderstand the ways in which agrifood and digital technologies are used tostrengthen corporate power. In particular we need a cross-sectoral technology assessment process to analyse and propose policies to confront the rapid
digitalization of the food system. A civil society-led Food, Data and Justice(FDJ) Dialogue is helping to set the stage to ensure that digital and biodigital technologies are subject to precautionary and rights-based oversight asa counter to the vast power of the Food Barons. The Food, Data and JusticeDialogue is a step towards bringing together the food sovereignty movement and technology equity activism, to assess the ongoing deployment
of digital technologies throughout food systems, understand the threats tofood sovereignty, and identify principles for the governance of digitalizationin agriculture.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 141 |Anti-monopoly action and competition treaties
Most states maintain at least nominal tools to limit overbearing and unfair
power in the marketplace, even if they are rarely (and imperfectly) applied.
Competition offices and justice departments can investigate, and rule andlevy fines against mega-mergers and unfair business behaviours in the nameof maintaining ‘competition’. They also have the power, at the national andregional levels, to break up overly-large companies in the name of competition. That restraint does not exist at the international level, even though thecompanies highlighted in this report are mostly operating transnationally.
However, some major national economies are taking modest steps to restrain corporate power and promote competition, especially in relation to
Big Tech. For example, in China, tech titans such as Alibaba have received
substantial fines, and the European Parliament has attempted to censure
Facebook. The EU is also beginning to grapple with the problems createdby the data-dependent “gig economy”. In addition, under the Biden Administration new rules are being written on the “right to repair” to prevent
manufacturers of devices (including cell phones and tractors) from imposing
restrictions on consumers’ right to fix equipment they own.
In 2021, finance ministers from nearly 140 countries reached agreement on
a 15% global minimum tax on large, profitable multinational corporations(based on where their products/services are sold, rather than where they
operate).9 The global pact aims to end corporate tax havens that siphon
much-needed corporate tax revenues away from governments. The agreement has many shortcomings and its fate is uncertain, but it signals thatgovernments can take collective action to reform policies and rein in corporate excess. With applied pressure from citizen action, the scope could
be expanded.
Anti-competition regulators must develop new mechanisms to understandand restrict the cross-chain powers of data giants and horizontal shareholders and require much greater transparency among private equity and othercorporate actors. At a global level, an International Treaty on Competition
with teeth could enable international oversight of corporate power (including the Food Barons).10 Food movements, consumers and civil society shouldhave legal standing to intervene in reference to corporate mergers. Given
the overwhelming Northern character of the Food Barons that dominate theIndustrial Food Chain, Southern governments, in particular, should actively
engage in the creation of a multilateral instrument to protect local/territorial
food systems, instead of the World Trade Organization’s trade rules which
work in the opposite direction. The development and implementation ofthese instruments should be undertaken in consultation with civil society,peasant farmers’ and indigenous peoples’ organizations.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 142 |Last word
In conclusion, it can be daunting to imagine taking on the Food Barons, but
their power is not inevitable – it is a historical oddity that is barely a century
old and still only feeds less than a third of people on the planet, and badly atthat. They may be backed by the titans of capital, have their claws in around
10% percent of the global economy and be ruthlessly proactive in buttressing
the Industrial Food Chain with new technologies and slick false promises –but as more and more of the food chain comes under the control of fewer
and fewer entities these companies also become more exposed and vulnerable to being toppled.
Agribusiness is also in a moment of significant transformation, as it is challenged by new players and seeks to regain legitimacy amidst the climate crisis and biodiversity collapse that it has itself caused.
This is a moment to see the Food Barons for what they are, to find theirstructural weaknesses and to take strategic collaborative action to take themon. This report provides some useful intelligence for food sovereignty movements and their allies in the battles ahead.

Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022

| 143 |Notes
12013 World Bank global income distribution dynamics model (GIDD) suggests that almost 45% of the population in
the world lives in households where agricultural activities
represent the main occupation of the head, also see https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/agricultural-population (see summary for “Handbook of Computable
General Equilibrium Modeling SET, Vols. 1A and 1B”). As
current global population is just short of 8 billion (7.96 billion people), 45% of that would be 3.6 billion.
2 The blog-post author acknowledges that the costs are conservative and do not include many negative externalities
associated with industrial agriculture, such as biodiversity
loss, health costs due to pesticide use and deterioratingwater quality. See Martien van Nieuwkoop, “Do the costsof the global food system outweigh its monetary value?”
Voices, World Bank blog, 17 June 2019: https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/do-costs-global-food-system-outweighits-monetary-value .
3 https://www.etcgroup.org/content/backgrounder-smallscale-farmers-and-peasants-still-feed-world

https://www.etcgroup.org/content/backgrounder-smallscale-farmers-and-peasants-still-feed-world
5 https://www.foodsovereignty.org/nyeleni-process/6 For more details on Adasina’s approach, see: http://adasina.
com/extractive-agriculture/
7 RED TECLA is a network for the social evaluation of foodand technologies in Latin America, see http://redtecla.org/
8 AfriTAP is a decentralised, pan-African network, see https://
assess.technology/regional-technology-assessment-platforms/africa
9 Alan Rappeport, “A Tax Deal in Trouble,” New York Times,
7 June 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/briefing/global-minimum-tax.html .
10 Plate Tech-Tonics: mapping corporate power in Big Food, ETC Group,
November 2019, p.22, https://etcgroup.org/sites/www.
etcgroup.org/files/files/etc_platetechtonics_a4_nov2019_
web.pdf and Communique 116, “Between BlackRock anda Hard Place”, ETC Group, October 2018, p.18, https://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/etc_
group_blackrock_and_a_hard_place_october_2018.pdf
4Research by ETC Group, September 2022 - Full report with citations is available here: https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022