Some California design students tracked the ingredients in their favorite local taco and came up with this cool image.

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Regarding firm size and integration, it must be kept in mind that the agriculture industry in the U.S. has, for good reasons, moved beyond the historic, pastoral image of small family farms operating in quiet isolation, devoid of big business and modern technologies. The genetic traits that give modern seeds their value—traits that confer resistance to herbicide and high yields, for example—are often developed through processes that are technologically-advanced, time- and money-intensive, risky investments, and subject to various layers of regulation. It doesn’t take expertise in industrial organization to imagine why at least for some participants in this market these processes are likely to be more efficiently and effectively conducted within large agribusiness companies having enormous research and development budgets and significant expertise in managing complex business and legal operations, than they are by the somber couple depicted in the famous 1930 Grant Wood painting, “American Gothic.” Nor is such expertise required to imagine why complex contracting across firms, of any size, is likely to be of significant help in supporting the specialization and division of labor that is useful in allowing some businesses (even a small family farm is a business) to be good at planting and harvesting while others are good at inventing, investing, managing, developing, testing, manufacturing, marketing, and distributing the next wave of innovative crop technologies. This requires on the one hand that the government give reliable enforcement to contracts and property rights whether tangible or intangible (extremely important in this industry are patents, trade secrets, and even trademarks), while on the other hand it allows firms wide flexibility to decide for themselves which of these contracts and property rights they would like to enter into or obtain pursuant to the applicable bodies of contract and property law.

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Learn from history, don’t repeat it.

Antitrust laws originated in Midwest states like Missouri in the late 1880s when small farmers banded together in the face of falling agricultural commodity prices to stand against the competitive pressures of larger, more efficient farming operations. Over a century later, it is, as Yogi Berra said, “déjà vu all over again.”

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As regular readers know, we’ve been following with (critical) interest the antitrust issues surrounding the seed industry in general and Monsanto in particular.  See, for example posts by me or Mike here, here and here.

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A couple weeks ago, Geoff wrote concerning the DOJ’s misguided antitrust interest in Monsanto. With that in mind, I was very interested to see today’s announcement that Monsanto’s earnings and gross margins are significantly off for its fiscal first quarter.  According to the Wall Street Journal report, Monsanto posted a loss for the quarter due to a 36% drop in sales and lower margins resulting from price decreases.  Leading the drop, sales of the company’s Roundup and other herbicide products tumbled 63%!

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Introduction

Biotech seeds have become an enormously-­?valuable part of the food supply in the US and abroad. A substantial portion of soybeans, corn, cotton and other agricultural products grown in the US are derived from genetically-­?modified seeds. The genetic traits that give these seeds their value—traits that confer resistance to herbicide and high yields, for example—are often developed by large agribusiness companies, with enormous research and development investments. The process is technologically advanced, time- and money-intensive, a risky investment, and subject to various layers of regulation. The process of developing a new seed variety can take 15 years and require hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Regulations from the USDA, the FDA and the EPA can slow or halt the process, and international trade regulations (particularly from countries that ban or severely restrict importation of GMOs) complicate the control and the commercialization of the final products.

In part for these reasons, the biotech seed industry—like all segments of the US agricultural industry—has seen a substantial increase in concentration. Large scale is of obvious benefit to companies engaged in massively expensive R&D programs that can achieve economies of scale and thus lower costs. Meanwhile, there are also likely other vertical efficiencies associated with contractual arrangements between various players in the transgenic supply chain:

Vertical efficiencies such as reduced transactions costs and coordination achieved by exploiting the complementarities between traits and traited seed assets can also reduce costs. Closer, more precise coordination between levels in the transgenic supply chain may result in more efficient creation of new transgenic varieties in increasingly differentiated product markets.[1]

Thus it is not surprising that the period of increasing innovation has been accompanied with an increase in concentration as innovating firms assembled the necessary, complementary assets to develop and commercialize their innovations, often through vertical and horizontal mergers and acquisitions.[2] The remarkable gains in biotech seed development since the industry’s infancy less than 20 years ago, along with the complexities of the industry and our limited understanding of the economic significance of organizational choices in the industry, should counsel strongly against hasty antitrust intervention in the industry. Consumers enjoy significant benefits from innovation that must be considered before responding too quickly or improperly to complaints about increased concentration, especially if the complaints come merely from competitors.

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[1] Diana L. Moss, “Transgenic Seed Platforms: Competition Between a Rock and a Hard Place?,” American Antitrust Institute White Paper (October 23, 2009), available at http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/Archives/seed.ashx.

[2] Id. at Figure 2. While Moss happens to conclude that this inverse correlation is a surprise and struggles to find explanations for the seeming contradiction, the proffered explanations are unpersuasive (or irrelevant). See Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes & Bruce Bjornson, Vertical and horizontal coordination in the Agro-­ biotechnology industry: Evidence and implications, 29 J. AG. AND APPL. ECON. 129 (1997) for a more relevant analysis of industry forces.

Biotech seeds have become an enormously-valuable part of the food supply in the US and abroad.  A substantial portion of soybeans, corn, cotton and other agricultural products grown in the US are derived from genetically-modified seeds.  The genetic traits that give these seeds their value—traits that confer resistance to herbicide and high yields, for example—are often developed by large agribusiness companies, with enormous research and development investments.  The process is technologically-advanced, time- and money-intensive, a risky investment, and subject to various layers of regulation.  The process of developing a new seed variety can take 15 years and require hundreds of millions of dollars of investment.  Regulations from the USDA, the FDA and the EPA can slow or halt the process, and international trade regulations (particularly from countries that ban or severely restrict importation of GMOs) complicate the control and the commercialization of the final products.

Read the full comments here.

The Nanny Brigade has once again descended on the Windy City. It previously sought to protect us from unhealthy trans fats, smoking in private establishments that we voluntarily patronize, and those oh-so-offensive theatrical depictions of smoking. The Nannies are now working to protect Chicago’s well-heeled from risks associated with the locally produced, artisanal sausages sold in some of the city’s finest restaurants. Whatever would we do without these folks (other than enjoy our lives more)?

Read the full piece here.

And now for something completely different. Being the only non-lawyer economist in the group seems to warrant such a preface sometimes.

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