Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said his committee will hold hearings on proposed consolidation in the chemical and seed sectors of agriculture. The Hagstrom Report says his announcement comes at the same time that Bob Young, Chief Economist from the American Farm Bureau Federation, expressed concerns about the three corporate mergers currently being considered. Grassley will hold the hearing on September 20, telling reporters that “if the mergers go through, you’d have a big three instead of a big six.” Grassley is referring to the proposed mergers of Dow and DuPont, the ChemChina plan to buy Syngenta, and the offer by Bayer to buy Monsanto. An article in the Financial Times reported yesterday that Young said, “Any one of the proposed mergers would have been okay, but to have three of them hit at once, it kind of makes one wonder.” Young said he’s concerned about the cost of inputs for farmers. “The obvious concern is would the mergers bring you to a point where they charge more than would otherwise be the case with more competition,” said Young.

Early reactions to the Heritage Foundation Report that calls for an end to commodity support programs and crop insurance have been swift. Dale Moore of the American Farm Bureau Federation says the Heritage Foundation hasn’t considered the current farm economy in their report that would leave farmers without a viable safety net. He said the challenges to cotton and dairy producers have been particularly difficult. “Congress and agriculture groups have worked toward a more market-oriented system in recent years,” Moore said. Tom Sell of the lobbying firm Combest, Sell and Associates said congress has rejected this line of thinking in the past. They recognize that farmers take on extraordinary risks to produce food for a market that’s been very distorted and volatile in recent years. “They know the Heritage Foundation is trying to demean policies that total one-quarter of one percent of the overall federal budget,” Sell said.

The Heritage Foundation is already laying out its case for ending commodity programs and crop insurance policies in the 2018 farm bill. Pro Ag obtained a report that lays out the agenda for the lobbying arm of the organization to implement when farm bill negotiations get going. The report says most farmers are able to manage risk without taxpayer help. They say the $15 billion annually spent on programs actually promotes riskier farming practices, such as limited crop diversification and farming land prone to flooding and erosion. The report says some farmers would lose their land, but they feel the government should not be guaranteeing that all farming operations survive and even flourish. The Foundation wants several programs enacted in the 2014 farm bill to be eliminated, including support programs like Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage. The group also wants to eliminate the dairy insurance program and current U.S. sugar policies to be discontinued as well. They want federal crop insurance to only cover deep yield losses and disasters, and not cover revenue loss.

A recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency was highly critical of the herbicide atrazine, which helps reduce soil erosion and runoff problems, which keeps soil healthy and water clean. EPA released its draft ecological risk assessment as part of the re-registration process for atrazine and if its recommendations stand, farmers will basically lose the use of the herbicide Tillage is an effective way to control weeds but disturbing that top layer of soil leads to a loss of 90 percent of crop residue from the soil. Tillage damages the soil and leaves it more vulnerable to erosion from wind and water, which in turn leads to more runoff of fertilizer and pesticides. Atrazine was one of the first products to be used on a widespread basis because it’s a broad spectrum product. It reduced the number of times farmers had to drive over their soil and that decreased erosion and runoff problems. Iowa State University Professor of Weed Science Bob Hartzler said farmers have made significant progress adopting reduced till and no-till methods of growing a crop and atrazine plays a key role in making these practices more sustainable. The National Corn Growers wants farmers to comment on the EPA’s proposal at NCGA dot Com forward slash atz.

Deputy Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Alexis Taylor is leading a trade delegation to Hong Kong and Shanghai through September 15. It’s part of an effort to extend USDA’s Women in Agriculture Initiative abroad as well as expanding export opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural products. Leaders from seven state agriculture departments as well as 23 U.S. agribusinesses and organizations are along on the trip as well. Taylor said the trade mission will be an opportunity to discuss the impact that women in China and America are having on agriculture and their visions for the future. The U.S. has strong trading relations with both China and Hong Kong. Last year, China was the number two export market for U.S. commodities and is expected to return to the top spot next year. In contrast to China, Hong Kong is more of an export market for consumer oriented products. With a population that’s over 7.2 million people packed into just over 400 square miles, Hong Kong imports more than 95 percent of its food supply.

Smithfield’s plant in Monmouth, Illinois, is closed for an undetermined amount of time after a massive fire on Monday night.  The fire hit the rendering area of the plant but no one was injured.  Most of the workers were off for the Labor Day holiday and a cleaning crew inside the building was safely evacuated.  A Smithfield spokesperson said further assessments will be made this week and they’ll get the plant back up and running as soon as possible.  Firefighters from up to a dozen departments in the area responded to the blaze.  The plant employs up to 1,500 workers that produce fresh pork products and ready to cook bacon.

News stories that Bayer has increased its bid for Monsanto and that the two companies are continuing to negotiate prompted National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson to take action. He’s calling on the US Justice Department to act on the deal, saying a merger between the two companies would not be good for farmers. Johnson said, “A Bayer/Monsanto merger would be a continuation of a wave of mergers in the agricultural input sector. That wave includes the recently approved ChemChina deal to acquire Syngenta, as well as the proposed mergers between Dow and DuPont and Potash Corporation and Agrium.” He said NFU will continue to express concerns that mega deals like these are made to benefit those in the boardroom and not family farmers. Along those same lines, Johnson said, “We are pleased to see that the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit to prevent a proposed merger between John Deere and Precision Planting. We urge them to continue to reject any deals, both now and in the future, that hurt marketplace competition.

Bloomberg reports that the China National Chemical Corporation has commitments from lenders on a $12.7 billion loan package to help secure its purchase of Syngenta. ChemChina acquired the financing from 17 different banks all together. The agreement to buy Syngenta for $43 billion came earlier this year in a deal that would make it the largest supplier of pesticides and ag chemicals in the world. The funds coming together now puts the state-owned corporation one step closer to finishing up the country’s biggest acquisition ever outside of its borders. US national security officials approved the takeover deal last month but it’s still subject to an anti-trust review by regulators worldwide. ChemChina is planning to sell $10 billion in preferred shares to help fund the acquisition. They also intend to raise another $15 billion in cash, bringing the total equity contribution to $25 billion. ChemChina will borrow the rest of the financing it needs via a loan package.