“Bayer bets the farm in $66bn Monsanto deal”, is the main business headline in The Times (£). The American pioneer of genetically modified seeds has struck a $66bn takeover deal with Bayer, the German chemicals giant, in the latest round of megadeal consolidations in agricultural production. Bayer’s record bid to create a £20bn sales a year seeds and crops giant was accepted after four months of intense negotiations.

“Bayer targets one-stop shop with Monsanto”, write The Financial Times (£). By improving agricultural yields, the enlarged company would help solve what it calls one of the “pressing challenges” facing humanity: how to feed a world population that is expected to grow by 3bn by 2050. However, the tie-up is expected to be probed by regulators as other agribusinesses seek to combine.

The Daily Mail unsurprisingly notes Monstanto’s reputation for producing “Frankenstein food”, writing: “Both firms have chequered pasts. Monsanto’s enthusiasm for GM crops has angered activists across Europe, who worry about their effect on the food chain, while Bayer was once part of IG Farben, a Nazi-era chemicals giant that used slave labour.”

Elsewhere, Ocado is “still a basket case” according to the Questor column in The Telegraph. “Questor has long been an Ocado sceptic. We warned two years ago that while the idea of creating a dominant online food retailer may be alluring, it simply wasn’t moving towards that goal. That is even more true today than it was then.”

It was a bears’ picnic at Ocado yesterday as hedge funds licked their lips at the collapse in the grocer’s share price, writes The Times (£). The upmarket online supermarket remains one of the top three most heavily shorted companies on the London stock exchange and its shares were the biggest fallers on the FTSE 250 for the second consecutive day.

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has been snubbed by UK retail bosses after he tried to call an industry meeting to discuss the pros and cons of exiting the EU. Davis contacted retail chief executives last week to invite them to a roundtable planned for Thursday, but it is understood that no major industry bosses plan to attend. (The Guardian)

The Times (£) notes the different fates of former Tesco executives after three were charged by the SFO, but Dan Jago, the former group wine director, was one of nine executives asked to “step aside” in October 2014, pending the investigation, has just been named chairman of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. (The Times £)

The Guardian has an interview with Hotel Chocolat co-founder on Angus Thirlwell “making chocolate exciting again”. (The Guardian)

The Daily Mail heads out to examine “the poshest Lidl store ever” in up-market Wimbledon. “Welcome to Lidl – the store that’s starting to win the hearts of the middle classes, having already won the battle for their wallets years ago.” (The Daily Mail)

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