After months of rumours Aventis, the Franco-German life sciences company, finally look set to sell their controver-sial CropScience division to German chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer. Since their Corporate Watch briefing[1] was published in April 2000, Aventis CropScience have consolidated their reputation as ruthless pushers of GM technology.

The company was created in December 1999 by the merger of German Hoechst and French Rhone-Poulenc. Aventis CropScience, the division dealing with GM crops and agro-chemicals was created from AgrEvo (a joint venture between Hoechst and Schering) and Rhone-Poulenc’s Agro. Schering still own 24% of Aventis CropScience.

In the UK they provoked widespread outrage by continuing field trials of GM crops despite huge public opposition Aventis is behind over 75% of GM field trials in the UK. This figure includes 84 farmscale trials, 13 National Seed List Trials, and 16 research trials[2]. The test sites have become a focus for public rallies and direct action. This summer over 25 of Aventis’ UK test sites have been decontaminated by members of the public. Aventis Liberty Link (herbicide toler-ant) maize and oilseed rape are close to entering the National Seed Lists in the UK. In late 2000 Aventis’ application to have ‘Charldon LL’ or ‘T25’ maize added to the UK National Seed List was postponed indefinitely when it was revealed they had failed to complete necessary tests prior to applying for inclusion.

In the US, Aventis tarnished their name last year when it emerged that a large part of the 1999 and 2000 US conven-tional maize crop had been contam-inated by an Aventis GM maize crop, Starlink. Starlink, engineered to be resistant to insects, can legally be grown as a fodder crop for animals, but is not cleared for human consumption. The resulting scandal led to claims for over $500 million compensation against Aventis by companies and farmers forced to recall contaminated products. Rather than acknowledging responsibility, Aventis lobbied for retrospective legislation clearing Starlink for human consumption[3].

Aventis have made it clear they wish to free themselves from their controver-sial loss-making CropScience division to focus on pharmaceuticals. Recent company literature emphasises the peripheral, ‘non-core’ nature of its CropScience division. After months of speculation as to whether CropScience would be spun off on its own or broken apart it now seems Aventis are close to selling the entire cropscience business to Bayer for an estimated $8 billion[4].

Bayer is a huge German chemical and pharmaceuticals company which, despite considerable holdings in crop protection, has so far kept its distance from GM crops, preferring a more ‘traditional’ reliance on agro-chemicals. However, Bayer are now looking to concentrate on and expand their pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors. Buying Aventis CropScience makes Bayer the world’s number 2 pesticide producer (behind Syngenta) raising their share of the global market to over 15%. It is thought likely that Bayer will sell Aventis’ insecticide business to BASF giving BASF a leading 21% in global insecticide sales. Splitting CropScience between Bayer and BASF would avoid any anti-trust proceedings.

A new Corporate Profile of the post-sale Aventis CropScience/Bayer CropScience will be available on the new Corporate Watch website in the autumn.


References:
[1] www.corporatewatch.org.uk/publications/GEBriefings/
aventis1.html
[2] www.genewatch.org/CropTrials/Trl2001.pdf
[3] www.corpwatch.org/un/updates/2001/starlink.html
[4] Bayer, BASF Plan to Split Aventis Crop Science Claudia Hume in Chemical Week 4,07,01

For more information on Bayer and their dubious history go to www.cbgnetwork.org - the site previously known as www.bayerwatch.org - the German giant has just won a court case against Bayerwatch/Coalition Gegen Bayer-gefahr forcing them to withdraw their domain name and trademarked group name. Bayer claim people could get confused between the site detailing their crimes and the real Bayer website.