Chicago

THE rationale behind Bayer AG's US$66 billion takeover of Monsanto Co, and other huge deals in the same industry, is that farmers are better served by a company offering optimised packages of seeds, crop chemicals and technology services. But not everyone is convinced.

Bayer is one of the largest producers of pesticides and Monsanto is the world's biggest seed supplier. Bundling all these products together will give customers "integrated solutions", a piece of industry jargon mentioned 13 times on the companies' conference call with analysts to discuss the deal on Wednesday.