The #covid19 crisis is laying bare the harm caused by decades of Big Food mergers. Shoppers are paying more and facing shortages, while farmers are paid less and forced to waste food.
Why? Because Big Food controls the supply chain from farm to table.
washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
Why? Because Big Food controls the supply chain from farm to table.
washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
Big Food has taken control over what grocery stores, restaurants, and shoppers buy and at what cost. Beef, pork, poultry, seed, chemical, and distribution companies are squeezing family farmers.
Family farms are disappearing across America. theguardian.com/environment/20…
Family farms are disappearing across America. theguardian.com/environment/20…
Government supported Big Food’s path to power based on corporate rhetoric about efficiency. Companies claimed that centralizing and specializing operations would make it easier to produce more, cheaper. This ideology prevailed even as competition virtually disappeared.
Ironically, the pursuit of efficiency led to today’s extreme inefficiency. Food produced for restaurants is being destroyed instead of rerouted to grocery stores. So much for synergy.
That's making it harder to respond to the #covid19 crisis. washingtonmonthly.com/2020/04/28/why…
That's making it harder to respond to the #covid19 crisis. washingtonmonthly.com/2020/04/28/why…
Rather than fixing problems, Big Food is exploiting the crisis. Farmers and ranchers are accusing meat giants of a price-fixing scheme to shortchange desperate farmers and hike prices on hungry families, all while putting their workers’ lives in peril. agriculture.com/news/business/…
These firms can succeed even when they fail because there are so few of them. It’s easy for a handful of giant companies to lock arms and agree on raising prices, lowering payments, or managing production in their favor. Why compete when you can collude? greatfallstribune.com/story/news/202…
Members of Congress introduced a bill in 2018 that would block Big Food mergers until a new law is passed to better protect farmers. The problems outlined in this bill are more urgent than ever. govtrack.us/congress/bills…
These Big Food abuses are replicated across the economy. Bad mergers kill jobs, stamp out small businesses, and destroy local economies. We need a moratorium on mergers that will undermine our pandemic response and recovery, and we need to crack down on rampant abuse.
