Posted on 07/20/2014 11:26:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
From our fields to our forks, huge corporations have an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply every step of the way. Right now there are more than 313 million people living in the United States, and the job of feeding all of those people is almost entirely in the hands of just a few dozen monolithic companies. If you do not like how our food is produced or you don't believe that it is healthy enough, it isn't very hard to figure out who is to blame. These mammoth corporations are not in business to look out for the best interests of the American people. Rather, the purpose of these corporations is to maximize wealth for their shareholders. So the American people end up eating billions of pounds of extremely unhealthy food that is loaded with chemicals and additives each year, and we just keep getting sicker and sicker as a society. But these big corporations are raking in big profits, so they don't really care.
If we did actually have a capitalist system in this country, we would have a high level of competition in the food industry. But instead, the U.S. food industry has become increasingly concentrated with each passing year. Just consider the following numbers about the U.S. agricultural sector...
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 own 83.5% of the beef market.
-The top four firms own 66% of the hog industry.
-The top four firms control 58.5% of the broiler chicken industry.
-In the seed industry, four companies 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.
When so much power is concentrated in so few hands, it creates some tremendous dangers.
And many of these giant corporations (such as Monsanto) are extremely ruthless. Small farmers all over America are being wiped out and forced out of the business by the predatory business practices of these huge companies...
Because farmers rely on both buyers and sellers for their business, concentrated markets squeeze them at both ends. Sellers with high market power can inflate the prices of machinery, seeds, fertilizers and other goods that farmers need for their farms, while powerful buyers, such as processors, suppress the prices farmers are paid. The razor-thin profit margins on which farmers are forced to operate often push them to "get big or get out"—expanding into mega-operations or exiting the business altogether.
Of course the control that big corporations have over our food supply does not end at the farms.
The distribution of our food is also very highly concentrated. The graphic shared below was created by Oxfam International, and it shows how just 10 gigantic corporations control almost everything that we buy at the grocery store...
And these food distributors are often not very good citizens either.
For example, it was recently reported that Nestle is running a massive bottled water operation on a drought-stricken Indian reservation in California...
Among the windmills and creosote bushes of San Gorgonio Pass, a nondescript beige building stands flanked by water tanks. A sign at the entrance displays the logo of Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water, with water flowing from a snowy mountain. Semi-trucks rumble in and out through the gates, carrying load after load of bottled water.
The plant, located on the Morongo Band of Mission Indians’ reservation, has been drawing water from wells alongside a spring in Millard Canyon for more than a decade. But as California’s drought deepens, some people in the area question how much water the plant is bottling and whether it’s right to sell water for profit in a desert region where springs are rare and underground aquifers have been declining.
Nestle doesn't stop to ask whether it is right or wrong to bottle water in the middle of the worst drought in the recorded history of the state of California.
They have the legal right to do it and they are making large profits doing it, and so they are just going to keep on doing it.
Perhaps you are thinking that you can avoid all of these corporations by eating organic and by shopping at natural food stores.
Well, it isn't necessarily that easy.
According to author Wenonah Hauter, the "health food industry" is also extremely concentrated...
Over the past 20 years, Whole Foods Market has acquired its competition, including Wellspring Grocery, Bread of Life, Bread & Circus, Food for Thought, Fresh Fields, Wild Oats Markets and others. Today the chain dominates the market because it has no national competitor. Over the past five years its gross sales have increased by half (47 percent) to $11.7 billion, and its net profit quadrupled to $465.6 million. One of the ways it has achieved this profitability is by selling conventional foods under the false illusion that they are better than products sold at a regular grocery store. Consumers falsely conclude that these products have been screened and are better, and they are willing to pay a higher price.
The distribution of organic foods is also extremely concentrated. A little-known company, United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) now controls the distribution of organic and natural products. Publically traded, the company has a contract with Whole Foods and it is the major source of these products for the remaining independent natural food stores. This relationship has resulted in increasingly high prices for these foods. Small manufacturers are dependent on contracts with UNFI to get their products to market and conversely, small retailers often have to pay a premium price for products because of their dependence on this major distributor. Over the past five years, UNFI's net sales increased by more than half (55.6 percent) $5.2. billion. Its net profit margin increased by 88 percent to $91 million.
Everywhere you look, the corporations are in control.
And this is especially true when you look at big food retailers such as Wal-Mart.
Right now, grocery sales account for about half of all business at Wal-Mart, and approximately one out of every three dollars spent on groceries in the United States is spent at Wal-Mart.
That is absolutely astounding, and it obviously gives Wal-Mart an immense amount of power.
In fact, if you can believe it, Wal-Mart actually purchases a billion pounds of beef every single year.
So the next time someone asks you where the beef is, you can tell them that it is at Wal-Mart.
On the restaurant side, the ten largest fast food corporations account for 47 percent of all fast food sales, and the love affair that Americans have with fast food does not appear to be in danger of ending any time soon.
Personally, if you do not like how these corporate giants are behaving, you can always complain.
But you are just one person among 313 million, and most of these big corporations are not going to consider the ramblings of one person to be of any significance whatsoever.
Collectively, however, we have great power. And the way that we are going to get these big corporations to change is by voting with our wallets.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans seem quite satisfied with the status quo. So the population as a whole is likely going to continue to get sicker, fatter and less healthy with each passing year, and the big food corporations are going to keep becoming even more powerful.
Maybe consumers are a lot smarter than you think.
You responded with your 'gum-flapping' comment, instead of addressing the facts.
Or my facts about the rapid growth of micro-breweries, because big brewers beer tastes like crap (but scores well with the mouth breathers).
/johnny
It is an excellent flavor enhancer. It is just one of many flavor enhancers the food industry uses in very small amounts. It also occurs naturally. It's what gives a tomato its flavor. It's rife in chicken, shrimp, Parmesan cheese, and many other things I hope you don't eat. That stuff could really be unhealthy for you.
The fact that we get 10 times more glutamate from naturally occurring sources than from added sources makes your fear of it totally irrational. But people fear the things they don't understand. Yeah, I'm talking about you.
I'd be happy to give you a lesson in flavor chemistry, but it would probably hurt your brain. You know, just like when you eat too much MSG.
BTW I noticed you glossed right over the MSG Obese Mouse thing.
Clearly, you didn't grasp what I wrote in response to your mindless Googling. Read it again and then I'd be happy to clear up any misunderstandings you have. If you get a chance though, please eat a couple of pounds of MSG every day next week and then let us know how you feel. I'm guessing you're going to feel just like those lab rodents you are so quick to offer up as proof of something. What that something is remains unclear, but to you I'm sure it really means something important.
If you had taken any chemistry, nutrition or biology in whatever passed for "education" in your earlier life, you'd have learned that bad health will result when you continuously overwhelm the body with anything. The only way for a blockhead like you to learn this fact is to experience it for yourself. Now get started on eating all that MSG, and get back to us in a week with a description of how you feel.
Standing by....
I am implying that there is.
yes because mace has a history of gum flappin trolling.
The fact is these companies control the majority of what is in stores. yes there are exceptions but those that are successful generally sell out to one of the big companies.
If the small companies get too difficult the big companies push through things like pushing through new regulations. Like prohibiting the resale of grain for animal food by beer companies. Regulations which are more expensive and harder to comply with for small companies.
Or perhaps you can prove the majority of food products in stores are not controlled by a few companies. Food products which the majority of the population consume.
Or perhaps you are drinking again and flapping your gums.
LOLOL!
Yeah, there is that part of it.
/johnny
The companies are run by non-Americans, contribute huge amounts of money to American politicians, have zero loyalty to America, and take their profits outside of America.
oh and they push the leftist agenda in the US.
And supposed conservatives give them a pass.
BUMP
No doubt that some food corporations are government rent-seekers, see ADM. We have a government controlled, Soviet-type ag system and most are trying to make the best of it.
If people won't buy a product, it goes away.
If people buy a product it makes money.
It's much cheaper to give people a product that they WANT to buy than forcing them to buy crap they don't really like.
It's pretty simple.
It does screw up your narrative.
/johnny
No narrative. Just calling out so called conservatives who openly support the leftist agenda.
/johnny
And the facts don't support you. Companies can't force anyone to give them money in exchange for value recieved. People have to be convinced to give them money.
Or the corporation goes broke.
/johnny
You’re naive.
If the product is horrible, it won't sell, regardless of the advertising.
Companies can't force consumers to buy a product if it's crap. The product won't sell.
And the company will go out of business.
Or do you know that companies force people to buy their product (insurance excepted) when the product is crap?
You support the leftist, anti-capitalist narrative that corporations are bad.
Those same corporations that pad your 401K retirement.
Not mine... I don't have a retirement. I'm gone galt.
/johnny
This is total BS. No wonder you embrace the nonsense you do. If you would spend more time reading about the subject from legitimate sources, you wouldn't end up embarrassing yourself here so often.
The food industry remains a large and highly fragmented industry. It is also one that produces a large number of new businesses every year and provides low barriers to entry for aspiring entrepreneurs. However, your beloved big government is doing all they can to change that. If an industry becomes less competitive, and more of an oligopoly or monopoly, it is because government made it happen.
If you had any experience in the food industry you would know that the relationship with government is, for the most part, highly adversarial. But you have absolutely no experience with it,even though you're posing as someone who does, so you remain clueless.
The same goes for the illiterates who think big pharma and the government are in bed together to do whatever evil it is that they do. And as proof of that collusion, they offer up the fact that it takes, on average, 13 years and $800 million dollars to bring a new drug to market thanks to government regulation. With friends like that..... Even in light of this glaring inconsistency, most don't grasp the sheer stupidity of their wild assed conspiracy theories.
If the small companies get too difficult the big companies push through things like pushing through new regulations
The regulations holding down the little guy have gotten so bad, in fact, that organic is only a $29 billion dollar industry today. Bastards! If only the food industry was more competitive and open to new ideas a company like Whole Foods could have had a chance. Too bad they never got off the ground. Damn those monopolies!
Remember the good old days in the 1950's and 60's when there were so many more food choices in retail and restaurants than there are today. Great times.
So it doesn’t sell and people buy a different product from one of these same companies.
They control the market, they control the regulations, they control the price its sold at.
The exceptions are statistically insignificant.
I am so glad the '60s are over.
/johnny
The corporation bends to the consumer. Always.
Who cares if it's the same company? It's the product that consumers want.
Corporations don't control the market. Buyers control the market.
Corporations try to get more control, but they still have to provide a product the consumer wants, at a price the consumer is willing to pay.
Or they go out of business.
Put the price too high? No sale.
Are you going to buy Dog-Poop Coffee(tm)?
Or go online to coffeebeancorral.com to find something better, at a price you are willing to pay? And maybe learn to roast your own green beans.
/johnny
The biggest problems farmers face have little to do with corporations, and everything to do with EPA and OSHA.
You can have the last word.
Since corporations produce about 95% of our food, this doesn’t come as a surprise.
I’ll just toss this in as a bit of circumstantial evidence support my claim the it’s Big Government (something not even mentioned in the above article) that is the biggest problem for all farmers, large and small.
“Passionate Farmer Takes On Her Government Harassers”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3182891/posts
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