Monopoly and Monoculture
In only 20 years, a handful of multibillion-dollar companies have come to dominate the global food industry. Though unassuming to look at, the tiny seeds they produce have generated not just food, but vast sums in corporate profits.
Words Camilla Hodgson
Illustration Dave Prosser
Growing crops requires the planting of seeds, which germinate, shoot, flower, and eventually produce new seeds that become the crops of the following year. Plants have always worked this way. But since the mid-1990s, the number of agricultural seed suppliers at the beginning of this process has rapidly decreased. As the market has consolidated, the cost of seeds and pesticides has shot up, denting farmers’ profits and lining corporate pockets. What was once an industry dominated by small, family-run farms has become big, industrial business.
In 1996 there were 600 independent seed companies operating in the US. By 2009, this number had shrunk to 100, and by 2016 the ten biggest seed sellers controlled 75% of the global market.
Today, the seed market is dominated by the so-called ‘big six’ agricultural biotechnology companies. These six alone — Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer…
