MEGAMERGERS IN THE AGRICULTURAL INPUTS MARKET, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND FOOD SECURITY: A PROPOSAL TO REVIEW REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS FOR BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 1 Megamergers in the Agricultural Inputs Market, Human Rights, and Food Security: A proposal to Review Regulatory Frameworks for Business and Human Rights Ana Luiza da Gama e Souza https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6818-7161 Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 1 This policy brief (PB) addresses the main global and local regulations for businesses and human rights, recognizing their insufficiency as legal instruments to hold companies accountable for human rights violations, particularly in the context of high market concentration resulting from the dynamics of megamergers, which have been a trend in the last decade. To this end, this brief examines the concentration dynamics in the agricultural inputs market, considering the severe risks to human rights and food security, since this market’s central strategy revolves around pesticide-resistant seeds, which entails massive use of these contaminants in global and local agriculture, especially in countries like Brazil. The arguments developed here are supported by data from reports by specialized institutions and agencies, such as the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES FOOD), the ETC Group, CADE Notebooks (Administrative Council for Economic Defense – Brazil), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and regulatory initiatives for business and human rights at the global and regional levels, in this case Brazil. These data indicate that high concentration in the agricultural inputs market, consolidated around four corporate giants, affects human rights and food security, either by causing market and price distortions that can harm consumers, producers, and farm workers (Clapp, 2025), or by reducing competitiveness, which undermines interest in truly sustainable technological innovation, keeping as the main portfolio the chemically dependent pesticide-resistant seeds. In this context, the creation of effective and adequate regulations requires that the context to which they are directed be empirically considered as socially understood practices (Bourdieu) of economic and political actors, situated within their context, and their impacts on human rights. It is the relationship between practices and their impacts or externalities (Callon, 1998) that should be the focus of those involved in developing these norms. Once emphasizing the need to consider context as practices, a bottom-up perspective is recommended, including key stakeholders such as civil society and academia, which can provide essential data to understand the context. This PB focuses on the global and Brazilian agricultural inputs market, highlighting the trend toward megamergers that has made this market increasingly concentrated and the impacts of this concentration on food security and human rights. Summary Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 2 In recent decades, agriculture has undergone substantial changes in its practices due to biotechnologies developed from the mid-20th century, which enabled genetic modification of seeds to “improve” plant resistance to adverse conditions, such as pest resistance. These new technologies were promoted by food market companies under the argument that they would increase agricultural production, reduce production costs for farmers, and improve food quality and safety, without considering their potential and serious impacts on the environment and human health. From the late 20th century, the food industry began focusing its strategies on genetically pesticide-resistant seeds, known as RoundUp Ready, around which seed, chemical, and small biotech companies merged, consolidating large corporations in the agricultural inputs market. This competition marked the first wave of mergers and acquisitions, followed by others that consolidated control of the agricultural inputs market in the hands of a few huge corporations, maintaining as a strategic business the integrated cultivation solution package combining genetically modified seeds, pesticides, information technologies, and spraying technologies, such as drone spraying. This convergence factors the centrality of pesticide-resistant seeds as a driver of the agricultural inputs market and the high market concentration—has implications for food security and impacts human rights to health and the environment. First, because market concentration increases the power of a few companies, reducing competitiveness and thus interest in truly sustainable technologies. It reshapes agricultural practices, limiting choices for both farmers and the communities, who are confined to the portfolios offered by leading companies, and increases political influence over internal processes, such as creating adequate norms to regulate local corporate activities, forcing alignment with human rights demands, and ensuring food security. Biotechnologies driving the agricultural inputs market currently focus on crop protection with the development of new pesticides, genetic modification technologies Findings Background Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 3 for seeds and traits—with priority given to pesticide-resistant seed development— and artificial intelligence technologies applied to redesign pesticide structures, pest control, and precision agriculture. Biological inputs are recognized as a solution for more sustainable agriculture; however, although already used as a supplement in crop protection, there is no evidence that the market intends to replace chemical inputs with biological ones. To consolidate this business as strategic for the agricultural inputs market, the first mega mergers between chemical and seed/trait companies occurred from 2015 onwards. The mergers of Monsanto with Bayer, Dow with DuPont, and ChemChina with Syngenta significantly increased market concentration, now controlled by just a few global companies “Big Ag”: Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, and ChemChina/Syngenta. In 2020, a new megamerger signaled a geoeconomic shift in the agricultural inputs market, traditionally Western, toward China. The merger of the two Chinese stateowned giants, ChemChina and Sinochem, positioned the Syngenta Group (controlled by the state-owned Sinochem Holdings) as the largest agrochemical conglomerate in the world, controlling 24.6% of the global market alone, followed by Bayer Crop Science with 16%. In 2022, Syngenta Group and Bayer controlled 40.6% of the agrochemical sector (from a 62.3% market share) and 30% of the seeds and traits sector (from a 58% share) (Shand & Wheter, 2022). In Brazil, Syngenta Crop Protection has led the list of the 20 main agricultural input companies since 2021, with pesticide sales reaching USD 13.301 billion, an 18.67% increase compared to 2020, followed by BASF and Corteva. The merger and acquisition dynamics around pesticide-resistant seeds, and particularly megamergers, which have become a trend in the agricultural inputs market over the last decade, have severe impacts on human rights and food security, especially in Global South countries like Brazil, given the country’s context as a major agricultural exporter, with strong agribusiness lobbying and weak pesticide regulation. These market dynamics are reflected in the dramatic increase in pesticide use in agriculture over the last four decades. According to FAOSTAT, from 1990 to 2022, total pesticide use in agriculture amounted to 3.70 million tons of active ingredients, a 4% increase from 2021, a 13% increase over a decade, and a doubling since 1990. In Brazil, pesticide use was 51,120 tons in 1990 and 719,507 tons in 2021, an increase of more than tenfold over 20 years, not counting the illicit market. In 2020, 70.4 tons of pesticides were seized on Brazilian roads, mostly from Paraguay (Idesf, 2021). Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 4 The increasing power of leading global companies in the agricultural inputs market over recent decades, consolidating pesticide-resistant seeds as a core business, is proportional to the rise in pesticide use worldwide and in Brazil during the same period, highlighting the risks of this business for human rights and food security. In this context of food insecurity and human rights violations, discussions and regulatory proposals for business and human rights, aimed at creating corporate human rights obligations, must begin by empirically understanding the context of each market, its actors, interests, and practices—a bottom-up approach that considers contributions from specialized organizations and academia to provide data that better reflect corporate practices and justify the creation and improvement of norms. Regulating and holding global corporations accountable for human rights remains a challenge. Considering rights to health, food, and environmental sustainability, corporate regulation through more defined and enforceable obligations is even more challenging due to the material-economic dimensions of these rights, requiring financial commitment and corporate profit allocation. For agricultural input companies, protecting these rights implies imposing restrictions on the market’s central strategy: the use of biochemical technologies in food production, combining seeds and pesticides. The two main international regulatory frameworks for business and human rights, the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines, rely on human rights due diligence (HRDD). Both are recognized as a global standard of expected conduct for all companies wherever they operate, aiming to ensure that companies make maximum efforts not to violate human rights in their activities. The recent European Union Directive (Directive 2024/1760 of the European Parliament) also relies on HRDD, including climate due diligence as a subset of HRDD, interpreted as a duty to act on climate change. The UN treaty under negotiation to become the first binding framework on business and human rights, discussed intensively since 2018, also relies on due diligence as a tool to commit companies to human rights. In Brazil, the new business and human rights regulatory framework—Bill 572/2022—establishes human rights obligations for the Brazilian state and also emphasizes HRDD. The adoption of HRDD as a standard to guide corporate conduct represents progress for the business and human rights agenda, as it has been incorporated into corporate agendas, although literature already argues its insufficiency or inadequacy (Deva, 2013; Choudhury, 2023; Gregg, 2021). Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 5 This PB argues that HRDD, as currently envisioned, is insufficient to prevent human rights abuses for the following reasons: Contextual blind spots: HRDD does not account for contextual differences and risks in each market, nor the rights most affected by a company’s operations in a specific market. Understanding the specific practices of companies in diverse markets and the political context factors involved is essential to properly assess risks. In the agricultural inputs market, high concentration, pesticide-resistant seed business portfolios, and political and corporate lobbying exacerbate risks to the right to health, life, and the environment, requiring stronger and urgent regulations. Megamergers and concentration risks: In the context of megamergers and high concentration, HRDD should encompass all business relationships, especially new businesses and investments that result in market concentration. Current guidelines primarily rely on antitrust laws—which have proven insufficient to prevent large corporate oligopolies—and the principle of fair competition, which simply does not exist in highly concentrated markets. Tolerance of harmful practices: Even when effectively implemented, HRDD does not eliminate pesticides from the food production chain but only restricts the use of certain substances based on toxicity criteria set by specialized agencies. In other words, HRDD cannot prohibit such practices; it only aims to mitigate or remedy harm after it occurs, implicitly accepting that harm to health, life, and the environment will continue. There is a disturbing silence regarding obligations on what companies must not do (Scheper, 2016), such as the use of harmful substances and genetically modified biotechnologies in food production due to their negative effects on human health and sustainability, which Deva (2023) calls “red lines.” These lines, he argues, virtually do not exist, as all business models and corporate practices are deemed acceptable as long as a process of harm prevention and remediation is in place. The indiscriminate use of pesticides in food production has increased significantly in Brazil and worldwide over recent decades, accompanied by a rise in diseases, deaths, and environmental contamination associated with these products. This increase is directly linked to changes in corporate practices in the global agricultural inputs market, especially the trend toward megamergers that further concentrate Conclusions Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 6 the sector, generating severe impacts on human rights and food security. In this context, both global and local normative frameworks have proven inadequate to address the practical challenges arising from the specificities of each market and the context in which companies operate, leaving gaps in human rights and food security protection. The insufficiency of these regulatory frameworks is evidenced by the lack of empirical and specialized data to inform decisions on corporate practices and market trends. This policy brief highlights that the dynamics of megamergers and high concentration in the agricultural inputs sector represent concrete risks to human rights and food security. To mitigate these risks, it is essential to adapt Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) to the specificities of new businesses and investments, recognizing the importance of HRDD in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). Furthermore, regulatory updates and the action of antitrust institutions - in Brazil, CADE - are required to evaluate and prevent the human rights impacts of concentration acts, reinforcing corporate responsibility and societal protection. To address the gaps identified, this PB proposes two complementary sets of measures—methodological and institutional—to improve the regulatory architecture for business and human rights. Methodological: This refers to the need to revise the concept of HRDD through a bottom-up approach, considering the empirical dimension underlying the normative dimension of regulatory initiatives, focusing on HRDD. The creation or improvement of norms for business and human rights should be based on broad debate among institutions, NGOs specialized in each market, and academia, which will provide empirical inputs so that the norm can meet human rights demands in each market. This PB presents and interprets relevant data to outline characteristics and trends in the agricultural inputs market that impact human rights, providing concrete inputs to inform normative debates on corporate regulation (Rodrigues Garavito, 2018). Megamergers and market concentration are trends that can change the business landscape and have significant human rights impacts. In the agricultural inputs market, regulatory frameworks should explicitly prohibit business models based on pesticide-dependent biotechnologies, as these are inherently linked to violations of Recommendations Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 7 rights to health, life, food, and a healthy environment. The first step of HRDD should involve: . Mapping market concentration, megamergers, and control mechanisms of key actors (patent ownership, seed varieties, and biochemical technologies). . Assessing the risks associated with these business models and their impacts on public health, biodiversity, and small farmers. . Identifying “red lines”—practices that must be prohibited because they are incompatible with human rights protection, even if economically profitable or technologically advanced. This approach shifts the regulatory focus from mitigation to prevention, recognizing that some corporate practices are inherently harmful and therefore unacceptable. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are common corporate dynamics and can be beneficial to business, but the impacts of these transactions must be considered in M&A processes, as target companies have their own human rights risks and approaches to managing them. Expansion into new sectors or regions may introduce additional human rights risks; thus, HRDD must consider the risks of M&A processes, especially megamergers, as discussed in this PB. Assessing M&A risks is also advantageous for the companies involved, as it adds value by providing comprehensive information on internal and external consequences, enabling prevention and risk management. For example, following the Bayer-Monsanto merger, Bayer Crop Science has repeatedly faced lawsuits related to Monsanto’s use of RoundUp Ready, which contains the carcinogenic pesticide glyphosate. Complementing this recommendation, antitrust regulations should consider that competent authorities assess the human rights impacts of market concentration acts. Recently, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, in a report approved by the General Assembly, highlighted the risks of concentration in the agricultural inputs market. Institutional: To ensure the effectiveness of HRDD and corporate accountability, the State’s role must be redefined—not only as regulator and enforcer but also as rights guarantor, responsible for ensuring that markets operate in compliance with constitutional and international human rights obligations. Institutional structures should be strengthened to address highly concentrated markets. Specifically, in Brazil, it is essential to: . Reform the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) to expand its Interagency. Institute N.2 NOV 2025 ISSN 2789 – 8040 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17932364 8 mandate beyond competition defense to include the protection of human rights affected by corporate activities. . Establish interinstitutional coordination between CADE, environmental agencies (e.g., IBAMA and ANVISA), and human rights institutions, ensuring that merger and acquisition decisions incorporate human rights assessments. 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