The executive order, expected within days, will also address such competitive issues as delayed airline baggage, cellphone company practices and Pentagon contracts, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The order would encourage the Federal Trade Commission to limit the ability of farm equipment manufacturers to prevent tractor owners from using independent repair shops or repairing their own equipment.

Reuters first reported the action on repairs earlier on Tuesday and the planned executive order last week.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday the effort would help farmers “fight back against abuses of power by giant agribusiness corporations and give farmers the right to repair their own equipment how they like.”

The FTC wrote a report for Congress in May that discussed “Right to Repair,” addressing the limits that manufacturers put on who can repair items ranging from mobile phones to home appliances to cars. Such limits may also raise the price of those repairs.

The source said the scope of any “Right to Repair” rules would be set by the FTC.

Biden’s order could encourage the FTC to lift further limits consumers face for repairing products they buy.

Some tractor manufacturers like Deere, Agco and CNH use proprietary repair tools and software to prevent third parties from performing some repairs. Shares of the companies fell on news of Biden’s plans, first reported by Reuters on Tuesday.

John Deere said in a statement it “does not support the right to modify embedded software due to risks associated with the safe operation of the equipment, emissions compliance and engine performance.”

It added that “less than two per cent of all repairs require a software update, so the majority of repairs farmers need to make, can be made easily.”

The FTC did not immediately comment.

The source said Biden and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) “believe farmers should have the right to repair their own equipment how they like.”

‘Product of USA’

Separately, Biden plans to direct USDA to write rules to boost competition in agricultural industries, including one under the Packers and Stockyards Act making it easier for farmers to bring claims, the White House said. There will also be anti-retaliation protections for farmers who raise concerns about bad practices.

Biden will also direct USDA to issue new rules defining when meat can bear “Product of USA” labels, Psaki said.

Under current labeling rules, meat can be labeled “Product of USA” if it is processed in the United States, even if the livestock is raised overseas and then processed into cuts of meat at a U.S. facility.

Meatpacking has come under increased scrutiny after slaughterhouses closed temporarily during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, boosting prices for meat sold by processors such as JBS USA and Tyson Foods while lowering prices for farmers’ livestock.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has said he wants to make agricultural markets more fair and resilient after the pandemic highlighted how concentration in the sector can hurt farmers.

Four companies slaughter about 85 per cent of U.S. grain-fattened cattle that are made into steaks, beef roasts and other cuts of meat for consumers

USDA said in June it would start working on three rules to strengthen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, passed 100 years ago to protect farmers and ranchers from unfair trade practices.

— Reporting for Reuters by David Shepardson and Diane Bartz; additional reporting by Tom Polansek and Rajesh Kumar Singh.

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Makan Delrahim, who heads the U.S. Justice Department’s (DoJ) antitrust division, said the asset sales agreed to by Bayer were the “largest ever divestiture ever required by the United States.”

A Bayer spokesman said the planned sale of businesses with 2.2 billion euros (C$3.32 billion) in sales to BASF already agreed to address antitrust concerns, mainly in Europe, were not materially different from the DoJ’s demands.

“Receipt of the DOJ’s approval brings us close to our goal of creating a leading company in agriculture,” Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said in a statement.

After months of delays in a drawn-out review process the ruling brings Bayer close to creating an agricultural supplies giant with sales of about 20 billion euros, based on 2017 figures, when taking into account the divestments.

At current foreign exchange rates, that compares to about 12.4 billion euros at DowDuPont’s Corteva Agriscience unit, 11 billion euros at ChemChina’s Syngenta and 7.9 billion at BASF, including businesses to be acquired.

Bayer’s move to combine its crop chemicals business, the world’s second-largest after Syngenta AG, with Monsanto’s industry-leading seeds business, is the latest in a series of major agrochemicals tie-ups.

U.S. chemicals giants Dow Chemical and DuPont merged in September 2017 and are now in the process of splitting into three units. In other consolidation in the sector, China’s state-owned ChemChina purchased Syngenta and Canadian fertilizer producers PotashCorp and Agrium merged to form a new company, Nutrien.

Bayer committed to selling its entire cotton, canola, soybean and vegetable seeds businesses and digital farming business, as well its Liberty herbicide, which competes with Monsanto’s Roundup.

Under agreements with European and other antitrust enforcers, Bayer agreed to sell assets, with revenues of 2.2 billion euros, to rival BASF for 7.6 billion euros.

Bayer said in a statement it expected Bayer and Monsanto to begin the integration process as soon as the sales to BASF are complete, which it said are expected to take two months.

If Bayer does not close the deal by June 14, Monsanto could withdraw from the takeover agreement and seek a higher price.

It has already secured the go-ahead from key jurisdictions, including the European Union, Brazil and Russia. Apart from the U.S., it still needs clearance in Canada and Mexico.

In a separate statement, Bayer said on Tuesday said the European Commission had approved BASF as a suitable buyer of the businesses to be divested.

Bayer last week said synergies from folding Monsanto into its organization would be about US$300 million below its previous target because it will have to sell more businesses than initially expected.

— Reporting for Reuters by Diane Bartz and Ludwig Burger; additional reporting by Patricia Weiss.

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Alimentation Couche-Tard, a major Canada-based chain of convenience stores and gas stations, said in August that it would buy the smaller CST, which has the Corner Store markets, for some US$4.4 billion.

As of late January, Couche-Tard had 8,081 convenience stores in North America, including 6,710 which sold fuel, the company said in a news release.

The FTC required the companies to sell 70 fuel stations with convenience stores to Empire Petroleum Partners in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas, the agency said.

Empire also has the option to buy a gas station in Albany, Georgia, the FTC said.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, which is still seeking antitrust clearance in Canada, said in a statement that it expected the deal to close on June 28.

In Canada, the deal would give Couche-Tard up to 870 more retail sites, mainly under the Corner Store and Depanneur du Coin brands, in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

The CST stores offer standard convenience-store snacks and beverages and, in many cases, market sections with sandwiches, salads and fresh produce.

Some of CST’s Canadian retail sites and cardlock fueling stations, plus its commercial and home energy business, would go to Red Deer, Alta.-based Parkland Fuel Corp. in a C$965 million side deal with Couche-Tard.

The number of Canadian CST stores going to Parkland would be determined via the federal Competition Bureau’s review of the Couche-Tard/CST deal.

— Diane Bartz reports on antitrust issues for Reuters from Washington, D.C. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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The asset sales required by U.S. antitrust enforcers were similar to what the companies had agreed to give up in a deal they struck with European regulators in March.

The deal is one of several big mergers by farm suppliers, and the antitrust approval was quickly denounced by the head of the U.S. National Farmers Union, saying that farmers would face higher costs. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said the asset sales would prevent price hikes or lost innovation.

Dow and DuPont announced the deal in December 2015 in what was billed as an all-stock merger valued at $130 billion (all figures US$).

According to the filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the assets to be sold include DuPont’s Finesse herbicide for winter wheat and Rynaxypyr insecticides, which the Justice Department said had U.S. annual sales of more than $100 million.

Rynaxypyr insecticides registered for use in Canada include Coragen, approved for use in cereals, canola, sunflowers and various vegetable crops, and Altacor, used in fruit and tree nut crops. Finesse, a brand not sold in Canada, is a combination of chlorsulfuron and metsulfuron methyl.

DuPont will also sell its U.S. acid copolymers and ionomers business. The products are used to make food packaging and other goods.

The president of the National Farmers Union, Roger Johnson, called the antitrust approval “deeply disappointing.”

“Clearly, the Trump administration is content allowing our country’s consolidation complex to continue,” Johnson said in a statement. “The combination of Dow and DuPont, coupled with other pending mergers… drives up costs for farmers’ inputs, and it reduces the incentive for the remaining agricultural input giants to compete.”

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, which share the work of antitrust enforcement, have reviewed or are reviewing no fewer than four deals involving corporate titans that supply U.S. farmers.

In addition to the Dow and DuPont merger deal, Bayer has a deal to buy Monsanto, and ChemChina is purchasing Syngenta. Canadian fertilizer companies PotashCorp and Agrium are also planning a merger.

After Dow completes the merger with DuPont, the companies have said they would split into three separate companies specializing in material sciences, specialty products, and seeds and agrochemicals.

“As originally proposed, the merger would have eliminated important competition between Dow and DuPont in the development and sale of insecticides and herbicides that are vital to American farmers who plant winter wheat and various specialty crops,” acting Assistant Attorney General Andrew Finch said in a statement, adding that the merged company would have also gained a monopoly over ethylene derivatives used to manufacture food packaging and other products.

Finch said the settlement “will preserve vigorous competition.”

Analyst Brett Wong of Piper Jaffrey said he did not foresee another round of consolidation in the agricultural supply business in the near future. “It’s going to take some time for the current dust to settle,” he said.

Dow and DuPont said in a statement on Thursday that the deal would create efficiencies worth $3 billion and growth synergies of $1 billion.

Dow and DuPont have already received clearance to merge from Europe, China and Brazil. They now await approval from just a handful of countries, including Canada and Mexico.

DuPont on Wednesday also noted the waiting period under U.S. federal antitrust law has expired on a related asset swap with FMC Corp.

That deal will allow FMC to buy up part of DuPont’s crop protection business, while DuPont buys “substantially all” of FMC’s health and nutrition business.

The deal with FMC is now expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, DuPont said, pending completion of the Dow merger and other conditions.

— Diane Bartz reports on antitrust issues for Reuters from Washington, D.C. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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To win approval for the $43 billion deal, the companies agreed to divest ChemChina’s generic production of the herbicide paraquat, the insecticide abamectin used for citrus and tree nuts and the fungicide chlorothalonil, used for peanut and potato crops (all figures US$).

The settlement with the FTC calls for ChemChina’s Adama arm to sell its U.S. paraquat, abamectin and chlorothalonil businesses to California-based chemical firm Amvac.

Adama doesn’t market products with any of the three active ingredients in Canada, where Syngenta holds active registrations on all three.

Canada’s antitrust watchdog, the Competition Bureau, in February issued a “no action” letter on ChemChina’s Syngenta takeover, saying a deal was “unlikely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition” in the Canadian pesticide market.

Syngenta had $13.4 billion in sales in the U.S. in 2015, according to a report the company put out last year.

The deal was prompted by China’s desire to use Syngenta’s portfolio of top-tier chemicals and patent-protected seeds to improve domestic agricultural output. The country is the world’s largest agricultural market.

The deal is one of several that is remaking the market for agricultural chemicals, seeds and fertilizers. The trend toward market consolidation has triggered fears among farmers that the pipeline for new herbicides and pesticides might slow.

The other deals in the sector are a $130 billion proposed merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont and Bayer’s plan to merge with Monsanto. On the fertilizer front, PotashCorp has announced plans to merge with Agrium.

— Diane Bartz is a Reuters correspondent covering antitrust issues from Washington, D.C. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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To win approval for the US$10.4 billion deal, Danone agreed to sell its leading U.S. organic yogurt business Stonyfield Farms, the department said.

Danone did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In July, the French company announced plans to buy WhiteWave in its largest acquisition since 2007, a move it said would double the size of its U.S. business.

Danone’s brands include Dannon, Evian, Bonafont and the medical nutrition brand Nutricia. The purchase of WhiteWave, Danone’s largest acquisition since 2007, will help it woo affluent consumers who buy WhiteWave’s health food offerings such as Silk almond milk and Earthbound Farm organic salad.

But the Justice Department said in its complaint that the deal could hurt both organic milk sellers and buyers in the northeastern U.S. because WhiteWave and longtime Danone partner CROPP Cooperative are the top purchasers of raw organic milk in the U.S.

CROPP provides 90 per cent of the organic milk and other dairy products used in Stonyfield products. In addition to selling Stonyfield, Danone will also sever the strategic partnership with CROPP as a condition for buying WhiteWave, the Justice Department said.

WhiteWave has been seen as an attractive target since it was spun off from Dean Foods in 2012.

WhiteWave, which specializes in organic products, has outperformed mainstream packaged food businesses in recent years as consumers shift toward natural foods and healthier eating.

Danone said it expected the deal to increase its influence with retailers, particularly for in-store promotions and shelf space.

— Diane Bartz reports on antitrust issues for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

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Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said the proposed mergers of Dow and DuPont, Bayer and Monsanto, and Syngenta and ChemChina had potential consequences which were “troubling, in fact alarming.”

Executives at the five companies defended their mergers at a hearing of the U.S. Senate judiciary committee but Blumenthal was one of several senators who were unconvinced.

“The stakes are very high here. I am worried about consolidation in this area of our economy and other areas as well,” said Blumenthal, pressing executives from Bayer and Monsanto to acknowledge that their herbicides Liberty and Roundup, respectively, were competitors.

“They are competitors, yes,” said Bayer CEO Jim Blome, who noted the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup was generic. He said this meant merging the two companies would not reduce competition.

The merger spree began in December, when chemical titans DuPont and Dow Chemical agreed to an all-stock merger valued at $130 billion at the time, a first step toward breaking up into three separate businesses (all figures US$).

Next was ChemChina’s $43 billion takeover of Swiss pesticides and seeds group Syngenta in February. That deal won approval from a U.S. national security panel in August.

In September, two of the three big fertilizer companies, PotashCorp and Agrium, said they would merge and German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer clinched a $66 billion takeover of U.S. seeds company Monsanto.

Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, committee chair and a farmer, was one of several lawmakers who worried the deals would slow the rate of improvement in seeds and pest control for farmers.

“I’m concerned that further consolidation will diminish critical research and development initiatives which drive innovation,” he said.

The five companies sought to allay that concern and reassure lawmakers that they would keep licensing new types of seeds to smaller companies.

“Especially in agriculture, innovation is a requirement, not a choice,” responded James Collins, an executive vice-president at DuPont.

“This transaction will increase competition in seeds and traits,” he said, noting that DuPont’s strength is in seeds and Dow’s in agricultural chemicals. “We will be a more effective competitor.”

Asked about cross-licensing of new seeds, Bayer’s Blome said Bayer had “no plans to discontinue that.”

— Diane Bartz is a Reuters reporter covering antitrust issues from Washington, D.C. Additional reporting for Reuters by PJ Huffstutter.

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Saskatoon-based PotashCorp and Calgary’s Agrium confirmed Tuesday they were in preliminary merger talks, toward a deal that would create a fertilizer and farm-retailing giant.

Canada is likely to look more favourably on the combination because its regulators more strongly weigh the potential for achieving efficiencies such as reducing overhead and optimizing shipping. This position has its roots in a desire by policymakers to strengthen companies operating in Canada’s smaller market.

“The efficiencies defense will certainly loom large,” said Nikiforos Iatrou, competition group chair at law firm WeirFoulds in Toronto.

“It’s possible that in this case the efficiencies win the day in Canada but don’t carry the day in the United States.”

The defense was highlighted this year, when the Canadian Competition Bureau approved a deal between Superior Plus Corp. and Canexus Corp., saying that efficiency gains would be greater than the anti-competitive effects.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission blocked the same deal, which was then scrapped.

U.S. to focus on product pricing

PotashCorp and Agrium have significant operations in the U.S., which would spur review by the Federal Trade Commission or the Justice Department.

U.S. regulators would focus primarily on prospects for the deal to raise prices for the companies’ fertilizer products, which account for as much as one-third of input costs for U.S. corn farmers.

A combined PotashCorp and Agrium would control 62 per cent of potash capacity in North America, 30 per cent of phosphate production capability and 29 per cent of nitrogen capacity, according to National Bank Financial.

Both U.S. regulators have taken an aggressive stance on mergers, said Andrea Murino, co-chair of competition at law firm Goodwin Procter in Washington.

“Just based on the market shares, the deal is going to get some really close scrutiny,” she said.

The prospect of having only two big U.S. potash sellers, down from three, might worry antitrust enforcers, said Ethan Glass, a U.S. Justice Department veteran now at Quinn, Emanuel Urquhart + Sullivan in Washington.

The merged company could sell Agrium’s potash mine at Vanscoy in west-central Saskatchewan to ease those worries, he said.

Agrium-PotashCorp’s clout could also be diluted by other developments with rival miners Mosaic Co. and K+S AG planning to add capacity in North America.

Under the Canadian review, PotashCorp and Agrium could argue their merger would enable the Canadian company to be a stronger global player.

“This idea of creating a ‘national champion’ pops up from time to time — and the federal government is often pressured to consider measures that would be supportive of this,” said Subrata Bhattacharjee, vice-chair of competition for law firm BLG in Toronto.

The deal may also catch the attention of regulators in China, a major potash buyer. Agrium, PotashCorp and Mosaic sell potash offshore through jointly-owned Canpotex.

Huy Do of law firm Fasken Martineau in Toronto said Chinese regulators may see the deal as an opportunity to dismantle Canpotex.

— Reporting for Reuters by John Tilak in Toronto, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Diane Bartz in Washington, D.C. and Michelle Price in Hong Kong.

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If Monsanto accepts Bayer’s unsolicited offer, experts say, the deal would inevitably trigger a review by federal antitrust regulators. But that review would be slowed down by the fact that two other major mergers of the companies’ rivals are also underway.

Farmers and lawmakers say a Bayer-Monsanto deal could be one too many for an agrochemical and seed market where prices have risen and, say critics, innovation has suffered after it shrank to just six large players.

Jeffrey Golman, vice-president at Mesirow Financial, said the sheer size, scope and number of these deals would inevitably slow regulatory reviews and potentially complicate the process of finding buyers for divested assets.

“I can’t imagine that this could get done before the third or fourth quarter of next year,” he said.

A global downturn in grain prices and a strong dollar have reduced U.S. farm income and prompted farmers to cut spending. That has eaten into sales of the big six agrochemical and seed companies and now they are trying to shore up profits through mergers and partnerships.

DuPont and Dow Chemical agreed in December to an all-stock merger valued at US$130 billion at the time, in a first step toward breaking up into three separate businesses. In February, state-owned ChemChina agreed to pay US$43 billion for Swiss seeds and pesticides group Syngenta.

Late Wednesday, Monsanto confirmed that German drugs and chemicals group Bayer made an unsolicited takeover offer, aiming to create the world’s biggest agricultural supplier.

Analysts at Bernstein say that in order to clear antitrust hurdles to acquire Monsanto, Bayer would likely need to sell part of its cotton and vegetable seeds segments and a category of weed killers called non-selective herbicides.

BASF, the only one of the big six not currently in the deal mix, “looks like the only potentially credible buyer” left for some of these assets after the mergers, said Peter Carstensen, a retired law professor.

Gobbling up

Farmers, too, are unhappy as they have been squeezed by lower commodity prices and high land rents.

“If one or two people control all the traits, there really isn’t a lot of competition there,” said Dean Coleman, an Iowa farmer. “If you have half a dozen strong players it keeps them trying to provide the best for you and trying to get your business.”

The sector’s top companies have been gobbling up smaller players over the decades, a shift initially led by Monsanto’s push to grow its seed business in the 1990s. Collectively, the six companies have acquired more than 200 businesses globally since the mid-1990s, according to Fitch Ratings.

The ChemChina-Syngenta deal faces added scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is joining a U.S. government panel set up to vet the deal.

Bayer’s bid, which Monsanto confirmed it received late on Wednesday, has already prompted one leading farm state lawmaker to call for the Justice Department to keep a close eye on all of the deals.

“The Bayer-Monsanto talks only heighten the possibility that the industry, farmers and consumers could be adversely impacted by this consolidation trend,” U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told Reuters.

Now, Grassley said, “The Justice Department’s role to ensure a competitive marketplace is even more critical.”

The U.S.-based National Farmers Union, an industry group that has already come out against a merger of Dow and Dupont, will likely oppose Bayer’s bid for Monsanto, said president Roger Johnson.

Such opposition matters to regulators, as antitrust enforcers by law must focus on the effect of a merger on customers – and farmers are these companies’ customers.

For Missouri soybean farmer Roger Allison, the thought of regulators halting the deals is a hope he clings to. Years ago, when there were hundreds of small seed dealers and suppliers, salesmen clamored to deliver to his farm.

Now he is the one who has to travel far to get the seeds he wants.

“I can’t think of one merger that has ever helped family farmers,” Allison said. “It might have helped the bottom line of these multinational corporations. But it restricts who farms and who doesn’t.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Diane Bartz in Washington, D.C. and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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About a dozen states, led by Oklahoma’s attorney general, will join the department’s antitrust division in a review of the plan by ConAgra Foods to join Horizon Milling, a joint venture of Cargill and CHS.

The deal would combine their U.S. flour milling businesses into a venture that would control about one-third of U.S. capacity, dwarfing all competitors in size and market reach. The deal was announced on March 5.

“The antitrust division is investigating a proposed joint venture between ConAgra Foods, Cargill and CHS Inc. that would combine the flour milling operations of ConAgra Mills and Horizon Milling into a new joint venture called Ardent Mills,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona.

Horizon Milling is currently the largest U.S. miller. Its Canadian assets include the former Robin Hood flour mills in Montreal and Saskatoon, the former Robin Hood dry baking mix plants at Burlington, Ont. and Saskatoon, and a product development facility at Burlington.

Horizon produces Robin Hood-branded flour and baking mixes in Canada for the industrial and foodservice sectors, using the Robin Hood brand under license from J.M. Smucker. Horizon in late 2011 also announced it will build another flour mill on land it owns at Guelph, Ont.

Oklahoma and the other states are concerned that the new Cargill/CHS/ConAgra venture, to be called Ardent Mills, will have the power to illegally push down prices received by farmers for their wheat, the sources said.

They will also look at the impact on prices companies and consumers pay for flour, the sources said.

The fact that states are involved typically gives the Justice Department additional resources — and sometimes creates additional pressure — to ensure that a proposed transaction complies with antitrust law.

ConAgra and Cargill said that they had not been contacted by the attorneys general.

The other major player in the wheat milling business is Archer Daniels Midland, which has about 17 per cent of U.S. wheat milling capacity, according to the American Antitrust Institute, a non-profit group that advocates for competition in business.

AAI said in an April letter to the Justice Department that the proposed joint venture “raises potentially significant competitive concerns.”

“Could be overblown”

Agriculture, already a fairly concentrated market, has a history of price-fixing, said Thomas Horton, a veteran Justice Department litigator who now teaches antitrust courses at the University of South Dakota School of Law.

“It’s a very bad deal. To me, it’s just a plan to implement a price-fixing conspiracy through what’s called a joint venture,” Horton said.

But one industry expert, who asked not to be identified for business reasons, noted that the companies were not the only buyers of U.S. wheat. “It seems like a concern that could be overblown if you don’t take into account that they have to compete with people who export wheat as well,” the expert said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 958 million bushels of U.S. wheat will be used for food in the 2013-14 marketing year, which started on June 1, while 975 million bushels will be exported.

CHS, owned by farmers and co-operatives, said the deal would be good for farmers. “We are entering this venture because it brings good value for our farmers and co-operatives,” said spokeswoman Lani Jordan.

ConAgra spokeswoman Becky Niiya added that assuming the joint venture is approved, it “will continue to face significant competition from many other companies.” The companies expect the joint venture to close in late 2013.

If the Justice Department decides the venture would violate antitrust laws, it can ask a court to block it or require asset sales.

“Even something as storable as wheat, you’re still a price-taker ultimately,” said Patrick Woodall of Food and Water Watch, a public interest group. “I think this deal should be stopped irrespective of any divestiture plan.”

The proposed Ardent Mills would have 44 flour mills as well as bakery mix and specialty bakery facilities.

After Horizon Milling, Archer Daniels Midland is the second-largest U.S. miller and ConAgra is No. 3.

— Diane Bartz covers U.S. antitrust and patent litigation issues for Reuters from Washington, D.C. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network.

Related stories:
Horizon, ConAgra flour mills to form new joint venture, March 5, 2013
Cargill, CHS plan new flour mill for Guelph, Dec. 13, 2011

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