Genetics resources

GM crops family tree 2003

As 3 corporations, Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta, push for the commercial growing of GM crops in the UK, Corporate Watch brings you the biotech family tree. The family tree shows the complex tangle of name changes, spin-offs, joint ventures and acquisitions woven by the biotech industry during 10 years of rapid expansion, consolidation and crisis.

See it graphically as a poster or view company information.

In summary
It shows how a handful of old European and US chemical and pharmaceutical companies invested heavily in seed companies throughout the 1990s, rode out the hype and failure of the 'life science' concept at the turn of the millennium, and have become today's Gene Giants. They seek to change the way our food is produced forever.
Some name changes are inevitable as companies change hands, but others mark deliberate attempts to fake fresh starts and escape the notoriety of an old name. It is important to connect today's shiny new innovators, with their talk about sustainable development and feeding the world, to the parent companies that for years have manufactured hazardous chemicals, and even helped to develop weapons of mass destruction.

About the family tree
The family tree is deliberately selective and UK focused. It shows the evolution of the 3 companies, Bayer CropScience, Monsanto and Syngenta who are currently pushing forward the commercialisation of GM crops in the UK. The family tree shows the companies from which they were formed, and those companies with an involvement in GM crops in the UK that they have acquired and merged with. This is not an attempt to map the whole GM crops industry at a global level, or even to map every company that has had an involvement in GM crops in the UK. This family tree was completed in early March 2003 and is accurate at the time of going to press. It is the first in a series of new Corporate Watch briefings looking at the companies behind GM crop commercialisation.

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View it graphically as a poster

Click here for a clickable guide
(graphics are around 150kb so if you have a slow connection you might want to stick to html)

PDFs - front (lots of graphics 1.8Mb) l back (more text and information 119kb)

Copies of the A2 poster available now from Corporate Watch.

View company information

Syngenta l Bayer l Monsanto l Resources