Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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of food production, distribution, and consumption. This is also occurring,
as we can see from the example of ConAgra, whose multiple subsidiaries
produce livestock feed, feed-out and slaughter cattle, process pork and broil-
ers, distribute agrichemicals and genetically engineered products, transport
grain, process food, and sell food under many labels including Healthy
Choice, Hunt's, and Peter Pan Peanut Butter (Grey 2000; Heffernan 1999,
2000; Hendrickson and Heffernan 2002b). In fact, with sales of $23.8 billion
and profit of $1.6 billion in 1998, ConAgra is second only to Philip Morris in
U.S. food processing companies and getting close to the international giant,
Nestlé (Heffernan 1999).
This market concentration has explicit implications for the integrity of
rural life and our ecosystems. The topic Corporate Reapers (Krebs 1992),
in sections appropriately titled “a rural bloodletting” and “efficiency and
ruthlessness,” explains that the demise of rural America is not the upshot of
free market capitalism but the result of agribusiness price fixing and delib-
erate anticompetitive strategies. First, this concentration increases farmers'
dependence on specific inputs at set prices. To buy seed, fertilizer, and agri-
chemicals fromone companymay not provide the bestmanagement options
(industrial farmers often get advice from chemical dealers). Second, it hurts
farmers' earnings. If they can only sell to a handful of companies, they may
not be earning a fair price (and in fact corporations tend to buy out hundreds
or thousands of grain elevators in a geographical region, so farmers really
have only one place to sell their grain). Third, it means your food is con-
trolled by corporate profit motives. Our food dollars are concentrated in the
hands of a fewmegacompanies. Canwe trust that they are giving us themost
nutritious food possible? Fourth, this concentration makes the U.S. food
supply vulnerable to the market forces of a very few corporations (Magdoff
et al. 2000). Is there any competition in the system? This is an odd question
for a capitalist economy, but a valid one now. Perhaps food is a unique prod-
uct that deserves a specific policy in order to safeguard society (Hendrickson
et al. 2001). Fifth, what about our rural communities? With fewer, larger
farms, and inputs purchased from huge outside corporations, and crops
sold and distributed to national and international firms, rural economies
wither and rural areas decline. Finally, what does vertical and horizontal
integration mean for the environment? The corporations that control farm
inputs and prices, distribution, processing, and sales are not place-based.
They are geographically disconnected. And this lack of concern for a spe-
cific place makes environmental degradation quite easy, as it is faceless and
placeless. Rather than local, small-scale “mom & pop” stores, we now have
detached multinational corporations determining the future of agriculture.
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