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Editorial
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The sinking island of Aventis By Mark Lynas mark@corporatewatch.org January 2000 Just before the turn of the new millennium, while most of the rest of the world worried about the Y2K bug or did its Christmas shopping, top management at two large European pharmaceutical companies worked late into the night to put the finishing touches to the latest biotech mega-merger. Then, on 15 December Aventis was launched. Formed through the merger of the French Rhone-Poulenc and the German Hoechst corporations, one might have expected the birth of the world's biggest ever 'life sciences' company to be greeted enthusiastically by the industry. Instead, financial analysts and other observers watched in embarrassed silence as the company adopted policies and structures now seen by most as hopelessly out of date. Frankenstein's newest monster was in danger of being stillborn. At the same time as Aventis was being created, Monsanto was being humiliated. Faced with crippling debts, plummeting share values and a major anti-trust lawsuit, the world's most hated company had finally had enough and opted for a £27 billion merger with Pharmacia-Upjohn. Of course the 'merger' is really a take-over - Monsanto's prophet-wannabe CEO Robert Shapiro will be forced to play second fiddle to Pharmacia's Chief Executive Fred Hassan. In fact, the tired and drawn Shapiro is expected to retire entirely in 18 months. The collapse of the GM market in Europe (US soy exports to Europe fell from $2.1 billion in 1996 to $1.1 billion in 1999 [The Nation, 27 December 1999]) has caused shockwaves across the whole of the US agricultural industry. Consumer rejection of GM technology has reached new heights in Japan and the rest of Asia, and is finally beginning to percolate back to the US and Canada. In a recent press release, the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA), formerly a staunch advocate of GM crops, advised its members to think twice before planting modified corn. "Everywhere we turn, our customers are rejecting GMOs. It is time that we return to the premise that the customer is always right, and that it is the responsibility of American agricultural producers to supply the market what it demands. In this case it is non-GMO products," said ACGA Chief Executive Gary Goldberg [ACGA press release, 4 January 2000]. The arrogance with which the corporate giants forced GM into the food and agricultural market has gone. With it has died the 'life sciences' concept, where pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies would pool their biology experience to bring out racks of new genetically-altered crops, foods and drugs. Instead, the still-profitable pharmaceutical sections of the gene giants are scrambling to disassociate themselves from their much-hated biotech other halves. Both Novartis and Astra-Zeneca have spun off their agri-biotech divisions into a new joint entity called Syngenta. Now the restructuring of Monsanto will mean the pooling of its dramatically unpopular agri-biotech activities into a separate company, which will be partly sold off. So why is Aventis bucking the trend? Perhaps because, being the biggest gene giant of all, the arrogance of might is still lingering. A more likely explanation could lie in the long period of time it took to restructure and relaunch the newly-merged company, distracting managerial attention away from potential changes in strategy. Either way, a new corporate brand is being launched - full-page adverts have already been run in most UK broadsheets - which in a few months could become as mud-spattered as Monsanto's before it. A direct action campaign is already being planned, to focus on the company's investors, test sites and new offices. Because it owns most of AgrEvo, new renamed Aventis CropScience, Aventis assumes responsibility for all except one of the 24 GM tests currently being grown around the UK. The test sites - especially if they include the government's planned expansion to 75 farm-scale trials - are certain to give Aventis CropScience a high and negative public profile in the months ahead. As Monsanto crumbles, Aventis seems to be willing to assume the mantle of being the world's foremost advocate of GM technology. It is currently particularly interested in the opportunities for forcing 'LibertyLink' herbicide-resistant rice on Third World farmers across Asia and South America. Neither has it given up hope that LibertyLink oilseed rape can be introduced on a wide scale in Europe. And the sheer might of this giant company should also illustrates the threat is poses. With a pro forma annual turnover of £12 billion for 1998, it towers over former enemy-number-one Monsanto's mere $8.6 billion for the same year [annual reports]. Yet the crucial test, as so often, will take place in the United States. If farmers begin defecting away from GM crops in large numbers, the days of crop biotechnology in its current form are numbered. The genetics revolution will go on - especially in the medical and nutraceutical areas - but the GM seeds-herbicides product will be in terminal decline. If Aventis thinks it can win where Monsanto failed, campaigners are already gearing up to do battle. Mark Lynas is Co-ordinator of Corporate Watch. This article has also appeared in Splice magazine, published by the "Genetics Forum". www.geneticsforum.org.uk |