The Department of Justice is collecting comments on "agriculture and antitrust enforcement issues in our 21st century economy." The DOJ is trying to decide if companies are violating the nation's monopoly rules and has asked any and everybody for their thoughts. The DOJ receives comments and posts them here. 

It can make for interesting reading. For instance, there are seven state attorneys general investigating whether Monsanto's stranglehold on genetically modified seeds violates antitrust laws. Not so Kentucky AG Jack Conway, a Democrat who is now running for the U.S. Senate. Conway has written a letter to the DOJ that asks the government to further protect the intellectual property of firms like Monsanto. "(T)hese companies can produce these types of results only if they know their intellectual property rights are assured," Conway wrote. We assume this means Conway won't be joining any anti-Monsanto suits.

Bryan Wolfe, a dairy farmer in Rome, Ohio, tells how the markets for his milk have been reduced since 1992, leaving him with only one buyer for his product. The National Chicken Council tells us that the contracts signed by farmers in the chicken-raising business have been good for growers. Jon McConaughy, a beef producer, laments the lack of a local slaughter house. And Monsanto has submitted a 89-page brief.

The case of the disappearing bees is endlessly fascination, and the Washington Post has an update on colony collapse disorder (CDD), the malady affecting the nation's hives. Post reporter Adrian Higgins tells us that the losses have continued. Research has found that bee loss has stabalized at around 30%, but that figure was based on last winter's data. Reports from some beekeepers peg the losses this winter at 50% or more. 

"I am very concerned about this year based on what we have seen in California and other parts" of the United States, said Jeffery S. Pettis, research leader for the Agricultural Research Service's honey bee laboratory. There is no single cause of CDD, or at least none that researchers have found. "With the condition, foraging worker bees don't return to a hive even if a full brood is waiting to hatch," Higgins wrote. "One theory is that the foragers, knowing they are sick, fly off to die rather than compromise the hive."

The cause could be pesticides or the strain of travel. (Bees are trucked from one end of the country to another where they are put to work pollinating crops.) Bee keepers used to make their money on honey. Now, however, they make most of their income on pollination fees. 

An Amish farmer, Emanuel Miller Jr., in Wisconsin has won a court case against the state's animal registration law. The 2005 state law requiring livestock owners to register the location, number and type of animals owned (a law that was a precursor to the larger animal tagging scheme promoted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture). "Some Amish and others say such a numbering system would amount to the 'mark of the beast,' which is referenced in the Book of Revelation as being related to Satan," wrote Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Bruce Vielmetti. "Clark County Circuit Judge Jon Counsell ruled that the state failed to show how mandatory registration furthers animal health and food safety any more effectively than alternatives that would not affect Miller's religious freedom." 

Miller argued that animal registration would put the government before God and bring him into the modern wordk. Miller said he would be shunned by his church. The state is expected to appeal the ruling.

Also, this morning the New York Times reported on the front of its business section that rising prices for seed have resulted in an antitrust investigation of that business and, especially, Monsanto. The story precedes a hearing Friday in Ankeny, Iowa, on concentration in various agriculture sectors. 

Bloomberg reports that at "least seven U.S. state attorneys general are investigating whether Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed producer, has abused its market power to lock out competitors and raise prices." The seven states are Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and two other states that Bloomberg's Alison Fitzgerald could not yet identify. The AGs in the seven states have created a working group to coordinate the inquiry. The five named states account for 39% of the corn and soybeans 9above) produced last year. 

Bloomberg's story comes two days before the U.S. Justice Department will hold a "workshop" in Ankeny, Iowa, on concentration in the ag business sector. The primary target of all this activity is likely to be Monsanto, the seed producer. Monsanto's Roundup Ready genetically engineered seed line was in 93 percent of the soybeans and 82 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. last year, according to Fitzgerald.

“Monsanto has become such a dominant player in the seed business that producers have real concerns that the price they pay for seed is going to be anywhere near reasonable,” said John Crabtree, a spokesman for the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, a nonprofit group that provides services to farm communities. “The fear is that the sky’s the limit.” The state AGs are investigating whether Monsanto offered financial incentives to dealers or farmers to exclude competing products. A Monsanto spokesman said these were "unsubstantiated allegations."