Monsanto-Bayer to dominate in Microbials and Big Data-Driven Precision Agriculture

If the Bayer-Monsanto merger is allowed to go through, the resulting company may have a monopoly stake in microbials and big-data enabled precision agriculture technologies, both important new markets for industrial agriculture.

Microbials:

Since the 2010s the world’s largest industrial agriculture enterprises have been investing in the development and commercialization of “microbials” – products derived from living organisms – that can be added to seeds and soils and/or sprayed on crops with the aim of increasing crop yields and pest-resistance. Microbials aren’t new: for example, Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, is a bacterium that has been used as a pesticide for more than a half-century. But spurred by environmental and sustainability concerns including resource scarcity in mineral fertilizers, companies are taking advantage of big data advances to identify other apparently beneficial microbes as well as communities of microbes working together as “functional consortia.”