The $88 billion merger deal between crop technology giants Bayer and Monsanto seems unlikely to impact on a ground breaking weed research partnership between Bayer and the Australian grain industry.
However, the farm sector continues to be uneasy about the potential consequences of yet another super-merger between two of the world’s biggest crop chemical companies.
Last year the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) signed a five-year agreement with Bayer CropScience to establish a herbicide innovation partnership to tackle Australia’s $3.25b herbicide resistance problem.
The farmer-funded GRDC is contributing $45 million to support Bayer’s global centre of excellence for weed control work in Germany, which includes recruiting Australian university graduates and agronomy researchers to work with Bayer.
A major focus of the project is to provide find solutions to manage Australia’s weed control problems including herbicide resistance in ryegrass, wild radish, feathertop Rhodes grass and fleabane.
GRDC’s outgoing chairman, Richard Clark, said he knew little about what the high profile Bayer-Monsanto merger would mean on the ground in Australia, but he was assured by Bayer officials the joint research project into weed resistance would not be hurt.
“We’ve had a courtesy letter explaining what the announcement was about last week, but no more details about what might happen at this stage,” said Mr Clark, who oversaw the GRDC-Bayer research project’s origins after its Frankfurt weed resistance research site opened two years ago.
“We expect to continue to work closely with the new, bigger Bayer.
“We’ve also had past research relationships with Monsanto in Western Australia, and with Syngenta and other chemical companies – they’ve been ground level opportunities to boost the effectiveness of crop protection in our difficult Australian environment.”
Mr Clark said weed control rated biggest input cost on Australian grain farms after fertiliser – in some cases even bigger than fertiliser.
Compounding our weed cost is the fact about 39 different Australian plant or weed species are resistant to current farm chemical controls.
“Resistance to our herbicide range is crippling many options growers have,” he said.
Until Australian farmers and researchers had highlighted the blowout of weed resistance problems and expenses, Mr Clark said international chemical makers and researchers had appeared to overlook the seriousness of the problem, particularly in low margin cropping environments like Australia.
Bayer’s venture with GRDC was significant because, unlike many chemical research to date, it would zero in on Australian weeds and growing conditions in early stage trials of new active ingredients.
As well, 40 new researchers - about 11 of whom come from agricultural degree backgrounds in Australia - will undertake the resistance work in Frankfurt.
He said GRDC had no opinion on whether Bayer’s latest bid for Monsanto was a good deal for agriculture.
Croppers suspicions were inflamed last week when it was confirmed Bayer had abandoned genetically modified cotton research on September 9 – just days before its head office announced GM crop giant Monsanto had accepted its merger offer.
While Mr Clark realised many farmers were frustrated by the prospect of the merger meaning less market competition and diversity of product development, he said combining two powerful players was potentially a better way to economically develop new technologies the crop protection industry badly needed.
However, new generation super-sized chemical companies, including Dow-DuPont and Syngenta-ChinaChem, would only survive if they were serious about finding cost effective solutions for farmers.
“Their income comes from farmers like us in Australia, so they need to be sure their priorities are also our priorities.”
Mr Clark, who has been GRDC chairman for the past six years, is stepping down to be replaced by a near neighbour from Boggabilla, John Woods.
A current GRDC director, Mr Woods runs Booroola Pastoral Company a 5200-hectare cropping operation in northern NSW and southern Queensland and has held roles with National Rural Advisory Council, Chemcert Training Queensland, the Rural Financial Counselling Service Review Committee, Cotton Australia and other industry groups.