(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/corporateHEADER-700pg.jpg)
Corporate Power in Agriculture - Farm Aid (http://www.farmaid.org/site/c.qlI5IhNVJsE/b.8586841/k.382D/Corporate_Power_in_Agriculture/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp)
A handful of corporations control our food system from farm to fork.
This concentration of power leaves eaters with fewer options to support good food from family farmers, while pushing droves of family farms out of business. Corporate concentration in the food system has caused serious damage to rural economies, public health and the environment.
What does corporate concentration in agriculture mean?
In a healthy economy, multiple firms can sell their goods to multiple buyers in an open, competitive market. But this isn’t the case in agriculture, where most farmers are forced to buy their inputs from just a handful of companies and have very few places to market their goods.
The term corporate concentration describes the control that a small number of corporations have over food production, distribution, marketing and consumption through their share of the marketplace.
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How bad is it?
The U.S. agricultural sector suffers from abnormally high levels of concentration. Most economic sectors have concentration ratios around 40%, meaning that the top four firms in the industry control 40% of the market. If the concentration ratio is above 40%, experts believe competition can be threatened and market abuses are more likely to occur: the higher the number, the bigger the threat.
The concentration ratios in the agricultural sector are shocking.
• Four companies (http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.5/cattlemen-struggle-against-giant-meatpackers-and-economic-squeezes/the-big-four-meatpackers-1) own 83.5% of the beef market.
• The top four firms (http://grist.org/article/giants/) own 66% of the hog industry.
• The top four firms (http://www.farmaid.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=qlI5IhNVJsE&b=2723877&ct=13131593) control 58.5% of the broiler chicken industry.
• In the seed industry, four companies (http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/10558-the-worlds-top-ten-seed-companies-who-owns-nature) control 50% of the proprietary seed market and 43% of the commercial seed market worldwide.
• When it comes to genetically engineered (GE) crops, just one company, Monsanto, boasts control of over 85% of U.S. corn acreage and 91% of U.S. soybean acreage.
more (http://www.farmaid.org/site/c.qlI5IhNVJsE/b.8586841/k.382D/Corporate_Power_in_Agriculture/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp)
(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/corporate_concentration-gerritsen_GIF.jpeg)
(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/WILLIE_QUOTE2.jpg)
(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/images.jpg) (http://www.farmaid.org/site/c.qlI5IhNVJsE/b.2723609/k.C8F1/About_Us.htm)
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