Competition Bureau completes investigation of alleged anticompetitive behaviour in Canada's agricultural sector

Mar 15, 2022

GATINEAU, QC - The Competition Bureau announced that it has closed an investigation into allegations of anticompetitive behaviour related to the supply of crop inputs (such as seeds, fertilizer and crop protection products) in western Canada.

The Bureau examined allegations that a number of manufacturers and wholesalers disadvantaged, restricted, or blocked the supply of crop inputs to Farmers Business Network Canada Inc. (FBN).

The investigation focused on determining:

if an agreement or arrangement against FBN existed between any of the targets of the investigation;
if any of the targets abused a dominant position by acting with negative intent to exclude FBN from the market; and
if any of the alleged conduct had or would likely, as a result, have substantially prevented or lessened competition.

Following a careful review of the evidence, the Bureau determined that the evidence does not sufficiently demonstrate that an agreement exists between competitors in relation to FBN.

Nonetheless, the evidence does suggest that certain market participants communicated with the goal of influencing suppliers with respect to FBN. The Bureau views these communications – which took place in a highly concentrated sector – to be a significant concern. Firms should be aware that similar communications could create agreements that contravene the civil or criminal conspiracy provisions of the Competition Act depending on their terms.

The Bureau also focused on the conduct of the targets that it believes are most likely to hold dominant market positions under the Act. At this time, the evidence does not clearly demonstrate that their conduct resulted in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition – which is a requirement for behaviour to form an abuse of dominance.

Having carefully considered the full body of evidence, the Bureau does not intend to pursue its investigation. A position statement summarizing the Bureau's findings and the reasons for ending this investigation is available on its website.

The Bureau will continue to closely monitor the crop input industry for any anticompetitive conduct that seeks to restrict new entrants and has the potential to substantially lessen or prevent competition. Should new evidence come to light, the Bureau will take action.

Source : Cision

Video: Moving Ag Research Forward Through Collaboration

BY: Ashley Robinson

It may seem that public and private researchers have different goals when it comes to agricultural research. However, their different strategies can work in tandem to drive agricultural research forward. Public research may focus more on high-risk and applied research with federal or outside funding, while private sector researchers focus more on research application.

“For me, the sweet spot for public private sector research is when we identify problems and collaborate and can use that diverse perspective to address the different aspects of the challenge. Public sector researchers can work on basic science high risk solutions as tools and technologies are developed. They then can work with their private sector partners who prototype solutions,” Mitch Tuinstra, professor of plant breeding and genetics in Purdue University’s Department of Agronomy, said during the Jan. 10 episode of Seed Speaks.

Public researchers they have the flexibility to be more curiosity driven in their work and do discovery research. This is complimentary to private research, which focuses on delivering a product, explained Jed Christianson, canola product design lead for Bayer CropScience, explained during the episode.

“As a seed developer, we worry about things like new crop diseases emerging. Having strong public sector research where people can look into how a disease lifecycle cycle works, how widespread is it and what damage it causes really helps inform our product development strategies,” he added.

It’s not always easy though to develop these partnerships. For Christianson, it’s simple to call up a colleague at Bayer and start working on a research project. Working with someone outside of his company requires approvals from more people and potential contracts.

“Partnerships take time, and you always need to be careful when you're establishing those contracts. For discoveries made within the agreement, there need to be clear mechanisms for sharing credits and guidelines for anything brought into the research to be used in ways that both parties are comfortable with,” Christianson said.

Kamil Witek, group leader of 2Blades, a non-profit that works with public and private ag researchers, pointed out there can be limitations and challenges to these partnerships. While private researchers are driven by being able to make profits and stay ahead of competitors, public researchers may be focused on information sharing and making it accessible to all.

“The way we deal with this, we work in this unique dual market model. Where on one hand we work with business collaborators, with companies to deliver value to perform projects for them. And at the same time, we return the rights to our discoveries to the IP to use for the public good in developing countries,” Witek said during the episode.

At the end of the day, the focus for all researchers is to drive agricultural research forward through combining the knowledge, skills and specializations of the whole innovation chain, Witek added.

“If there's a win in it for me, and there's a win in it for my private sector colleagues in my case, because I'm on the public side, it’s very likely to succeed, because there's something in it for all of us and everyone's motivated to move forward,” Tuinstra said.