Although there's no Trump administration nominee for United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) secretary yet, the Trump Transition team took a little time today to cheer a merger of two giant ag corporations today.
Oh lovely.
Bluestem Prairie's editor is a member of Minnesota Farmers Union, and so we pass along this statement from the National Farmers Union:
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team announced today that it has struck a deal with Bayer AG, committing the German agricultural input company to investing $8 billion towards research and development should the company be permitted to acquire competitor Monsanto Co.
In response to the announcement, National Farmers Union (NFU) President Roger Johnson released the following statement:
“Today’s announcement that President-elect Trump’s transition team has struck a deal with Bayer and Monsanto is deeply disturbing if it leads to an approval of the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition by the incoming Trump Administration.
“Family farmers and rural communities came out in droves to support President-elect Trump and his campaign messaging of fighting the power structure, putting a stop to corporate mega mergers, and standing up for the little guy.
“The touted benefits of these deals pale in comparison to the adverse effects family farmers and ranchers will face with continued mergers in the agriculture sector. Corporate consolidation in agriculture leads to less competition and choice in the marketplace and higher input costs for family farmers and ranchers.
“We strongly urge the President-elect reject the notion that corporate consolidation benefits family farmers and rural America by putting an end to the endless string of mergers in agriculture.”
CNN Money's Paul R. La Monica reports in Trump takes credit for saving Monsanto jobs, but ...:
Following Donald Trump's meeting with the CEOs of Monsanto and Bayer last week, the president-elect's transition team says the companies will increase research and development spending in the U.S. and keep Monsanto's headquarters in St. Louis.
But will any workers lose their jobs?
German pesticide and drug giant Bayer is planning to buy American seed and fertilizer king Monsanto. That deal was announced before Trump was elected president.
Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Tuesday that, after the meeting, the two companies have committed to $8 billion in R&D spending within the U.S.
A spokesman for Bayer confirmed to CNNMoney that Bayer (BAYRY) CEO Werner Baumann and Monsanto (MON) CEO Hugh Grant met with Trump.
The spokesman said they told the president-elect that the combined company planned to spend $16 billion on R&D -- at least half in the United States.
Spicer added that Monsanto and Bayer pledged to keep all of Monsanto's nearly 10,000 U.S. workers. The companies said they plan to create more than 3,000 high-tech jobs in the United States.
The Bayer-Monsanto deal was announced in September -- a time when many people thought Hillary Clinton would be the next president.
At the time, Bayer said that St. Louis would remain the North American headquarters of Monsanto and be the home of the global seeds business for Monsanto and Bayer.
Bayer also said that San Francisco would be the home of the combined company's digital farming unit, which uses real-time data on weather, soil quality and other measurements to make growing crops more efficient.
So Trump isn't necessarily keeping Monsanto in St. Louis. The company was never going to leave.
As for jobs, it's still unclear whether all Monsanto employees will remain with the company.
The Bayer spokesman did say the merger would "create several thousand new high-tech, well-paying jobs ... jobs that will keep America at the forefront of agricultural innovation and that serve U.S. farmers by delivering better products and services faster."
Bayer said that geneticists, roboticists, satellite imagery specialists, engineers, data scientists, advanced breeders and statisticians were the types of jobs the combined company would be looking to add.
But the Bayer spokesman did not address Spicer's claim that no jobs would be lost.
Executives for the two companies had hinted after the merger was announced that it could lead to job cuts on the administrative side of the business to reduce overlap -- a common post-merger occurence
According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report after the deal was announced, Liam Condon, head of Bayer's crop science division, told journalists it was a good assumption R&D jobs were safe, but that it was "too early" to say what might happen to administrative jobs.
Bayer was not immediately available to clarify whether or not any decisions had been made about Monsanto administrative jobs in the past few months. Monsanto did not have a comment.
Having swung a deal--or maybe not--regarding a mega-merger between agri-chemical multinationals--perhaps Team Trump will appoint a Secretary of Agriculture. You know, the cabinet member who serves farmers, ranchers and people who raise and eat food. McClatchy DC reports in Trump lags behind previous presidents on last Cabinet secretary pick:
Three days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump has yet to nominate his final Cabinet secretary.
By this time, the previous five presidents had already selected their 15 secretaries for the Cabinet, according to the White House Transition Project.
Trump appears to have gotten an earlier start than some presidents, but he’s lagging on the last one.
He has interviewed a number of candidates for agriculture secretary: California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and a trio of Texans – the state’s agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs and former Texas A&M President Elsa Murano.
He is being pushed to nominate a Latino. Latinos have served in Cabinets since Reagan tapped Lauro Cavazos for secretary of education in 1988.
Transition spokesman Sean Spicer has been asked several times about the timing of the final nominee, but he has not announced any schedule.
There's that.
Photo: A honeybee. Bayer is the king of the neonics.
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