1.Dow may sell AgroScience division
2.Scientists blocked from researching GM crop impacts

NOTE: PANNA places Dow AgroScience as the "sixth largest producer of pesticides worldwide". Etc. group, basing itself on sales makes it fourth among the world's "big six" pesticide firms by market share (based on agrochemical sales in 2007)    

1.Bayer (Germany) - $7,458m - 19% market share
2.Syngenta (Switzerland) - $7,285m - 19%
3.BASF (Germany) - $4,297m - 11%
4.Dow AgroSciences (USA) - $3,779m - 10%
5.Monsanto (USA) - $3,599m - 9%
6.DuPont (USA) - $2,369m - 6%
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1.Dow may sell AgroScience division
http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20090226#3

Dow Chemical Co. may be forced to sell Dow AgroSciences in an effort to raise cash. Currently the sixth largest producer of pesticides worldwide, Dow has quietly been shopping it's profitiable AgroScience division because of a cash shortage from two failed deals that are now in litigation. In late 2008, a joint venture with Kuwait's state-run Petrochemical Industries Co.-- that would have allowed Dow to complete a $15.3 billion acquisition of Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas Co -- collapsed. Facing litigation on all sides, Dow sued Kuwait to make good on their planned $9 billlion cash infusion to facilitate the purchase, while Rohm and Haas sued Dow to try to force it to complete the transaction, reports the Indianapolis Business Journal. TheDeal.com listed potential buyers of Dow AgroSciences as DuPont Agriculture and Nutrition, Syngenta AG and Bayer Crop-Science AG, which would lead to a further consolidation of the pesticide and genetically-enginered crop transnationals from the "big six" to a "big five": BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta.
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2.Scientists blocked from researching GM crop impacts
http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20090226#3

Biotechnology companies are stopping scientists from researching the efficiency and environmental impacts of genetically modified (GM) crops, according to a statement submitted to U.S. EPA by 26 specialists in corn pests. The scientists, primarily from land-grant universities, submitted the statement anonymously for fear of being blacklisted. Andrew Pollack of the New York Times interviewed the scientists, whose stories of the industry’s chokehold on research include outright prohibition of research and laundering of data. Leading agricultural biotech companies, including DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta, are also the primary producers of insecticides and herbicides. Scientists are concerned that neither EPA nor farmers can get enough non-industry-controlled science to make informed decisions about whether GM crop technologies are worth either the money or the risks increasingly associated with biotechnology. “U.S. agriculture uses far more biotech than any other nation.

The companies foisting these technologies on the developing world at a considerable profit are U.S.-based. The fact that neither U.S. regulatory agencies, nor American farmers, can get independent scientific assessment is especially alarming,” said PAN Senior Scientist, Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman. Risks and unintended consequences are only slowly coming to light, and include reduction rather than increases in yields, potential uncontrolled spread of food allergens and other genes, human and animal health harms associated with eating GM foods, and more. Genetically engineered crops have failed to deliver on industry promises of increased yields, nutritional value, or drought-tolerance. Herbicide tolerance (particularly for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's RoundUpTM) is the engineered crop trait that does appear to work, and is in broadest use (82% of biotech crops worldwide). According to a World Watch Institute report, wide adoption of such herbicide-tolerant crops in the U.S. has increased use of pesticides, resulting in the spread of 15 species of glyphosate-resistant “superweeds” in the U.S. alone. In the 1990s there were two such species of “superweeds.”

Interview with Chuck Benbrook about GM crops
http://tiny.cc/Q8wug