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Over the last year, in towns around the country, thousands of
farmers, ranchers, and concerned citizens have packed auditoriums to
overflow capacity–not for a rock concert or even a farm auction, but
for the leaders of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the USDA. The
departments have been on a listening tour, taking them from Iowa to
Alabama and Wisconsin to Colorado, to hear from food producers about
how corporate consolidation in food and agriculture markets has
affected their livelihoods. Next stop? Washington, DC, this Wednesday,
December 8.

The listening sessions–or workshops, as they’re officially called–are part of a year-long investigation by the Departments on “Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement in the 21st Century“–which
is to say that the DOJ and USDA are finally examining corporate
concentration in our food system. Given the numbers, the investigation
may be overdue: Right now, the top four companies control 85 percent of
the nation’s beef, 70 percent of pork, and 60 percent of the nation’s
poultry. Three corporations process over 70 percent of the nation’s
soy. Just one company controls 40 percent of our milk supply, and
Monsanto holds patents on 80 percent of corn seed. Our food system has
become one of the least competitive sectors of the marketplace–to an
extent that Attorney General Eric Holder has called the issue “a
national security matter.”

Holder and his USDA counterpart, Secretary of Agriculture Tom
Vilsack, have heard a wide range of views at the workshops, which have
each focused on a particular production sector (seeds in Iowa, poultry in Alabama, dairy in Wisconsin, and livestock in Colorado). Panelists have included grain and dairy farmer members of the National Family Farm Coalition and Family Farm Defenders, small-scale ranchers with the independent cattlemen’s union R-CALF, researchers from Food & Water Watch, and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union,
all asking for greater enforcement of antitrust laws. On the other
side, representatives from Monsanto, Consolidated Beef Producers,
International Dairy Foods Association, a professor who holds the
Pioneer [Seed Company] Chair in Agribusiness at Iowa State University,
and operators of massive feedlots have mostly defended the status quo.

From the latter group–as well as from most of the government
representatives–there has been a lot of seductive rhetoric about the
need for large-scale, industrial agriculture to feed a growing world
population, and references to local and organic agriculture as a niche
market. Other than statements by a couple of the small farmer panelists
and during the public comment period, there has been little reference
to the difficulties that independent farmers are having feeding
themselves, or the fact that industrial agriculture hasn’t helped the
one billion people worldwide who are currently suffering from chronic
hunger. There has also been almost no mention of international research
showing that to feed a growing population, we need much greater
investment in local markets, local control of seeds and growing
methods, and access to land. Studies like the UN- and World
Bank-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development
(IAASTD), indicate that we should invest in sustainable agriculture so
that it can grow beyond a niche market–and that we must break up the
monopolies that control agricultural markets and make it impossible for
newcomers to compete.