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

 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.