With Monsanto Co. acknowledging it has received an unsolicited takeover bid from Bayer AG, the farm-chemicals business is poised for a round of concentration. Competition authorities are already investigating the proposed $130 billion merger between Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co., and national security officials in the U.S. are weighing China National Chemical Corp.’s bid to acquire Syngenta AG of Switzerland for $43 billion. Should all of the deals go forward, it would leave three crop-chemicals giants capturing more than 75 percent of the global market.
