I’ve spent the last decade seeking alternatives to corporate lifestyles. My first move was to investigate a small, family-owned business with a mission that was aligned with my own interests (seeking to lessen the damaging effects of corporate medicine on a traditional medical system). After a thorough investigation of the company, the owners, and the culture of the organization, I decided to join them in 1998. Unfortunately, they didn’t decide to hire me until 2001 – so I spent the next couple of years making the most of my decidedly corporate lifestyle at the largest purveyor of agricultural genetics at that time (no company names – I am protecting the innocent).
In those last two years of my tenure at this large ag seed company, many things happened. One event that stood out was that the entire company was purchased by a huge multi-national chemical concern. A quick look at the parent company’s portfolio of businesses and locations made you think that the world was more dependent on what happened in a particular company than on what happened in any particular country. The question presented itself to me at that time: Is there such a thing as corporate sovereignty?
With that question, several others also arose. Two specific questions that stuck in my mind at the time: “Is there such a thing as corporate food domination?” and “How much involvement in the food distribution system by a single company is healthy?”. My employer at the time provided roughly half of the corn seed sold in America. A large percentage of this corn was basically grown as the bulk feedstock for animals (beef, pork and chicken). The animals’ ultimate fate was, of course, our dinner plate. The nutrient density of the corn, and thus, of the meat, was “programmed” genetically by this old stalwart seed company. That in itself was acceptable – the history of the organization was shining, with a long list of good and benevolent achievements. As time wore on and the impending purchase became imminent, however, examining the situation more deeply gave the impression of a rapidly spreading three alarm fire.
The first alarm rang out when, after a brief courting period and a joint venture, the aforementioned large chemical concern purchased the seed company outright. Is it still a benevolent business, seeking to help farmers be more productive through the broad application of the science of genetics? Or is it now simply a platform to sell chemical crop protection products? At the time, we all knew that we were the same company as when we started. But who could guess what the future held? The second alarm, at least for me, sounded when it became evident that the new owner had deep involvement in all aspects of food processing and distribution systems, from packaging and processing all the way to contaminant testing of finished foods, from production aids to the means of delivery. They owned proprietary products in each critical phase of food production, processing and distribution – now including the raw genetic material that formed the starting material for that food. The third, and maybe the loudest, alarm sounded after examining the other crop products that were available to this parent company. Their own existing genetics programs and the programs obtained thru their new purchase provided avenues to control large amounts of available germplasm for wheat, rice, corn, soybean, sunflower, canola and a myriad of minor crop germplasm bases.
Vertical integration in the food industry reached a new milestone with this “merger” of a chemical giant with what had previously been the largest and perhaps the most innocuous seed company, having no previous ties to anyone except their own shareholders. With the new ownership, what did the shareholders cede to this large chemical manufacturer? Did they merely hand over control of an undisputed pioneer in the agricultural genetics industry? Or was it actually a large chunk of the food supply that they served up on a platter? Does it matter? Will we all someday become ‘citizens’ of this new genetics giant by virtue of simply eating?


