This article is a part of the Agricultural and Biotech Mergers Symposium symposium.
Levi A. Russell is Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Applied Economics, University of Georgia and a blogger at Farmer Hayek.
Commenting on Microsoft’s antitrust suit 18 years ago, Milton Friedman said the following:
Your industry, the computer industry, moves so much more rapidly than the legal process, that by the time this suit is over, who knows what the shape of the industry will be.
Though the legal process seems to be moving quickly in the cases of Dow/Dupont, ChemChina/Syngenta, and Bayer/Monsanto, seed technology is moving fast as well. With recent breakthroughs in gene editing, seed technology will be more dynamic, cheaper, and likely subject to far less regulation than the current transgenic technology.
GMO seeds produced using current techniques are primarily designed with specific insect control and herbicide tolerance. Gene editing has the potential to go much further by creating drought and disease tolerance as well as improving yield. It’s difficult to know precisely how this new technology will be integrated into the industry, but its effects are likely to promote innovation from outside the three large firms that will result from the mergers and acquisitions mentioned above.
As in the food industry, small gene editing startups will be able to develop new traits with the intention of being acquired by one of the large firms in the industry. By allowing small firms to enter the seed biotech industry, gene editing will provide the sort of external innovation Joanna Shepherd notes is so important in understanding antitrust cases.
