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For Immediate Release
December, 11 2015, 11:30am EDT
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Dow-DuPont Merger: Perpetuating GMOs, Squeezing Farmers and Consumers?
AP is reporting: "Dow Chemical and the DuPont Co. announced Friday that they are merging in a $130 billion chemical industry megadeal.
"The merger would combine two companies that sell agricultural products to millions of farmers around the world, and make a variety of chemicals for consumer and industrial products ranging from electronics, automobiles, and household goods to building materials and safety equipment.
WASHINGTON
AP is reporting: "Dow Chemical and the DuPont Co. announced Friday that they are merging in a $130 billion chemical industry megadeal.
"The merger would combine two companies that sell agricultural products to millions of farmers around the world, and make a variety of chemicals for consumer and industrial products ranging from electronics, automobiles, and household goods to building materials and safety equipment.
"The two companies will form DowDuPont, then separate into three independent publicly traded companies focused on agriculture, material science and specialty products."
The following analysts are available for interviews:
WENONAH HAUTER, via Patty Lovera, plovera at fwwatch.org, @foodandwater
Hauter is the founder and executive director of Food & Water Watch and the author of Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America. She said today: "Just a handful of large chemical companies including Dow and DuPont already control most of the seed supply used to grow crops like corn and soybeans, as well as the herbicides that genetically engineered seeds are designed to be grown with. Any merger that consolidates this market into fewer hands will give farmers fewer choices and put them at even more economic disadvantage. And it will make it harder for agriculture to get off the GMO-chemical treadmill that just keeps increasing in speed. The Department of Justice needs to block this merger to prevent the further corporate control of the basic building blocks of the food supply."
DIANA MOSS, dmoss at antitrustinstitute.org, @antitrustinst
Moss is president of the American Antitrust Institute. She said today: "Any merger on the agricultural inputs side of DuPont and Dow will get antitrust scrutiny. Some of the markets for biotech and seeds are highly concentrated, which has been driven by Monsanto having made so many acquisitions in the past. If you put a new merger in the this mix, it's going to raise concerns about leaving only two or maybe three firms. That's a market landscape that doesn't promote competition, entry, and innovation. Farmers could be squeezed even more and consumers could pay higher prices."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
LATEST NEWS
'Contrast Could Not Be Clearer' as Medicare for All Advocate El-Sayed Faces AIPAC-Backed Stevens in Michigan
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race on Sunday after having positioned herself as a "moderate" choice.
Jul 06, 2026
With state lawmaker Mallory McMorrow having suspended her US Senate campaign, progressives on Monday were looking ahead to the final weeks of a primary race in which Michigan Democrats have a clear choice to make about who should run in the general election as the party hopes to wrest control of the chamber from Republicans: a candidate backed by the pro-Israel lobby or one who has focused his campaign largely on the broadly popular Medicare for All proposal.
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said in a video for the grassroots advocacy group Our Revolution that "the contrast could not be clearer" ahead of the August 4 primary as voters decide between Rep. Haley Stevens, who is backed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and former Detroit health official Abdul El-Sayed, who's been endorsed by progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
With early voting already underway in parts of Michigan, said Tlaib, voters are choosing between "a people-powered movement versus the establishment pick."
"Abdul is on the ballot right now to be our next US senator, the only candidate that is unapologetic in supporting Medicare for All," said Tlaib, urging supporters to canvass for the progressive candidate, who has also spoken out against military funding for Israel and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"All of us know the importance of direct human contact. That's how we get elected, especially someone like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is unbought and doesn't take corporate [political action committee] money," she said.
Our Revolution emphasized that with McMorrow out of the race, "the numbers show this is winnable."
As El-Sayed has faced Stevens and McMorrow in the three-way race in recent months, the progressive candidate has surged in several polls following his opponents' attacks on his campaigning with vocal anti-Israel critic and streamer Hasan Piker and as he has remained focused on what he says are his top three priorities: "money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All."
The most recent polling, from Quantus Insights, showed El-Sayed with 41% support compared with Stevens' 36% and McMorrow's 8%. Other surveys, like one from Tulchin Research for the pro-El-Sayed Fighting for Michigan PAC, found the candidate up 19 points over Stevens, with McMorrow in a distant third place.
A poll by a super PAC that supports El-Sayed also asked voters ahead of McMorrow's suspension of her campaign how they would vote if El-Sayed and Stevens were the only two candidates, and found the progressive up 54-34.
El-Sayed has argued during the campaign that Stevens' support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as well as for-profit health insurance companies is emblematic of a corrupt political system that's been worsened in recent years by the US Supreme Court Citizens United ruling.
As Common Dreams reported in May, AIPAC has appealed to its direct donors to send contributions of Stevens during the campaign, as well as spending $10 million to boost the candidate.
“I’m the only candidate today who didn’t ask AIPAC for their support," said El-Sayed at a debate in May. "I don’t think that our taxpayer dollars which we pay every April ought to be going to bomb children, to fund bombs and tanks for other countries, when we got kids who can’t afford basic things in our own.”
Before suspending her campaign, McMorrow cast herself as a candidate who could be seen as a midway point between Stevens' establishment connections and El-Sayed's demands for bold changes to the US political system and the Democratic Party's priorities.
But Lever News founder David Sirota pointed to McMorrow's dismissive comments about Medicare for All as evidence that she was far out of step with voters.
She claimed in an interview and a debate that public support for a government-run universal healthcare program "isn't there yet," despite the fact that the proposal was backed by 78% of Democratic voters and 65% of overall voters in one recent poll.
New York Times politics reporter Reid Epstein also pointed to McMorrow's decision to join in a weekslong smear campaign against El-Sayed, over his appearances with Piker, as a move that "backfired quickly."
"Her remarks helped burnish Dr. El-Sayed's claim that he was the lone progressive candidate in the race and the one most willing to criticize American funding of the Israeli military," wrote Epstein.
While Stevens supporters have suggested she's likely to appeal to more Michigan Democratic voters, recent public polling regarding AIPAC and Israel tells a different story following Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza, which has been called a genocide by top Holocaust scholars and human rights groups.
Last October, nearly half of Democrats in competitive primary districts said they "could never" vote for a candidate backed by AIPAC, and another survey in March showed a double-digit decline in support for Israel among US voters.
One campaigner for El-Sayed said Monday that interactions with voters have suggested Stevens' AIPAC ties are seen as a liability, even among people who haven't yet heard of her opponent in the primary.
Following McMorrow's announcement that she was suspending her campaign, El-Sayed thanked the state senator and said the race has been and remains a fight against "a politics that rigs the system against too many of us."
"The same party insiders she had the courage to challenge have been bullying anyone who opposes their chosen candidate," said El-Sayed. "After spending $30 million to drown Sen. McMorrow and me out, they're now spending even more to attack me. It's everything we stand against."
"I welcome her supporters to our movement to stand up against money in politics, to put money back in pockets, and pass Medicare for All," said El-Sayed. "We cannot allow the establishment to decide our nominee for us."
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As Gaza Water Crisis Worsens, Israel Bombs Critical Facility in Possible War Crime
"This station was one of the most important remaining sources of clean water in Gaza City," said an activist who has used it to supply desperate families.
Jul 06, 2026
As Gaza is gripped by a water crisis, Israel has reportedly attacked a facility that provided safe drinking water to thousands of families in Gaza City.
Tamer Nahed, a journalist and activist with the recently created humanitarian group Sake For Gaza, reported via social media on Monday that his group had been forced to suspend its efforts to provide clean water to some of Gaza's most dangerous areas after the facility they partnered with was "directly struck, resulting in the deaths of several people and injuries to others working there."
Middle East Eye reported on Monday that the attack, east of Gaza City, "struck a gathering of displaced people in front of a water refilling station" and killed two people as Israel shelled the city early on Monday.
The Palestinian outlet Al-Quds said the attack "directly targeted civilians as they stood in front of a water filling station" in the Al-Samar area, and was "part of a series of attacks launched by the occupation forces against civilian gatherings and vital facilities in the besieged areas of the Gaza Strip, exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian crisis."
Under international law, deliberately attacking civilian facilities or those that are essential for survival, like water facilities, is considered a war crime.
Israel has destroyed or damaged nearly 90% of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which says the military has used water as a "weapon" in its genocidal war against Gaza.
The group has documented the military firing upon clearly marked trucks and destroying boreholes and desalination plants relied on by thousands of residents. The group has also documented attacks on civilians accessing clean water.
A late-May report from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that around 82% of families in Gaza remain water insecure, and up to 70% are unable to collect even six liters of water per person each day. A person needs between 50 and 100 liters of water per day to meet their most basic needs, according to the World Health Organization.
Monday's attack came less than an hour after Nahed announced that the group's 11th truck had "reached one of Gaza’s most dangerous areas, carrying 5,000 liters of fresh drinking water."
The group had been attempting to send one truck per day to families living in tent cities, many of whom have been forced to rely on groundwater and contaminated water in order to survive, leading to serious illness.
Nahed said he and his team "truly risked our lives to reach this place, as it is located very close to military deployment areas, and the road was extremely dangerous at every moment."
He called the attack on the water supply facility "very heartbreaking news" and said as a result, "we have been forced to suspend our water distribution project until further notice."
"This station was one of the most important remaining sources of clean water in Gaza City and served as a lifeline for thousands of families, especially after most other water stations had stopped operating," he said. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and by the suspension of a project that was providing clean drinking water to people enduring these extremely difficult conditions."
Monday's attacks were some of the latest of Israel's near-daily strikes despite October's ceasefire agreement. Israel has expanded its control over the Gaza Strip in recent months, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying last week that the military “will not withdraw from the territory" as the agreement requires.
He added on Sunday that unless Hamas fully disarms, there also would be "no reconstruction in Gaza without dismantling and demilitarizing the strip."
Netanyahu described the occupation zone as a "new Gaza envelope inside of Gaza," a term that could refer to permanent occupation or annexation, as the term "Gaza envelope" refers to the communities inside Israeli territory near the Gaza border.
Other ministers in Israel's far-right government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have called for Israel to complete the "conquest" of Gaza and move Israeli settlers to replace the Palestinian population.
A recent proposal by the "Board of Peace," led by US President Donald Trump, conditioned the entry of basic humanitarian supplies, including shelter-building material, reconstruction aid, and other life essentials, on the total disarmament of Palestinian militant groups.
Last week, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that “the continued expansion of areas under Israeli control in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement in October 2025 is intensifying risks to civilians and further constraining humanitarian efforts."
“Humanitarian access remains severely constrained due to restrictions on movement, which results in delays or pauses in lifesaving activities,” the statement said. “Some partners have had to scale down or temporarily suspend lifesaving activities, particularly following the killing of service providers in those areas. This has affected up to thousands of families in the vicinity.”
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'People Will Go Hungry': Aid Cuts That Susan Collins Voted to Advance Could Cost Maine $50 Million a Year
"People who really, really need SNAP could potentially no longer receive it and not have a way to buy their groceries," warned one anti-hunger campaigner.
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Maine taxpayers could be on the hook for around $50 million per year in spending on federal nutrition assistance under the Republican budget law that Sen. Susan Collins voted to advance as it moved through Congress last year.
The GOP law requires states to pay a portion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit costs for the first time in the program's history, starting in October 2027. The size of states' obligation will range between 5% and 15% of their benefit costs; states with higher payment error rates—which experts say largely reflect administrative mistakes rather than fraud or abuse, as the Trump administration claims—will be forced to pay a larger percentage of benefit costs.
According to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture, Maine's SNAP payment error rate in Fiscal Year 2025 was 10.81%—just above the national average of 10.62%. Maine's error rate puts the state in the 15% category for benefit cost obligations, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
“It’s shocking, and it’s wildly unfair,” Anna Korsen, deputy director of the Maine-based advocacy group Full Plates Full Potential, told Maine Morning Star last week. “If the state can’t find a way to pay for these benefits, that will mean that eligible people will go hungry. People who really, really need SNAP could potentially no longer receive it and not have a way to buy their groceries.”
Facing criticism from Democratic challenger Graham Platner—whose campaign has accused Collins of siding with President Donald Trump to give "billionaires and corporations a handout paid for by cuts to Medicaid and SNAP"—the Republican incumbent has emphasized that she voted against final passage of the Republican budget package.
But last June, Collins cast what Maine Public Radio described at the time as a "pivotal vote to begin debating" the budget measure, which will cut SNAP and Medicaid by roughly $1 trillion combined over the next decade. Thousands of Mainers—and millions of people nationwide—have lost SNAP and Medicaid benefits since the Republican law's enactment last summer.
Advocates have warned that the unprecedented shift of a portion of SNAP benefit costs onto states could be devastating, potentially forcing governments to cut SNAP benefits further, slash spending on education and other priorities, or potentially end their participation in the program completely.
Democrats are working to include a provision in the annual Farm Bill that would delay the SNAP cost-shift to give states more time to prepare. Last month, as Common Dreams reported, Senate Republicans unveiled legislation that omitted Democrats' proposed delay.
CBPP estimated in a recent analysis that states "may soon face a collective bill of roughly $9 billion, threatening benefits for millions of SNAP households, 79% of which include a child, a senior, or a person with a disability, who count on SNAP to help them meet their basic needs."
"Without immediate congressional action to delay this cost shift for all states," the think tank warned, "the unfolding emergency will only worsen as more people lose the SNAP benefits they need to afford groceries."
George Kelemen, senior vice president of the national No Kid Hungry campaign, called the GOP law's cost-shift "an existential threat to our most powerful anti-hunger program."
"Most states could be forced to cut funding for SNAP or other essential services, and at least four states have said they may be unable to continue administering SNAP entirely if this benefit cost shift goes into effect," Kelemen said last month. "This means millions of eligible kids and their families will lose access to vital grocery benefits."
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