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Agricultural Resources
At all stages of the food system—from seeds
and other inputs to food processing and retail
food sales—market power is concentrating in
an ever smaller number of corporate firms. This
Notes:
1. ETC Group, Oligopoly, Inc. 2005: Concentration in
Corporate Power, Communiqué Issue #91 (Ottawa,
ON: December 2005).
2. Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology,
“Factsheet: Genetically Modified Crops in the
United States,” Washington, DC, August 2004.
3. Sophia Murphy, Concentrated Market Power and Agricultural
Trade, EcoFair Trade Dialog Discussion
Paper No. 1 (Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation,
August 2006), p. 10.
4. C. S. Srinivasan, “Concentration in Ownership of
Plant Variety Rights: Some Implications for Developing
Countries,” Food Policy, October–December
2003, pp. 519–46.
5. Keith Collins, Statement before the Senate Committee
on Appropriations (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office (GPO), 2001); Democratic
Staff Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and
Forestry, Economic Concentration and Structural
Change in the Food and Agriculture Sector: Trends,
Consequences and Policy Options (Washington, DC:
GPO, 2004).
6. Mary Hendrickson and William Heffernan, Concentration
of Agricultural Markets (Columbia, MO:
Department of Rural Sociology, University of
Missouri, 2005).
7. Murphy, op. cit. note 3, p. 9.
8. Ibid.
9.William Heffernan, “Social Consequences of Factory
Hog Production Systems,” in Understanding the
Impacts of Large-scale Swine Production: Proceedings
from an Interdisciplinary Scientific Workshop (Des
Moines, IA: 2005); M. S. Honeyman, “Sustainability
Issues of U.S. Swine Production,” Journal of Animal
Science, June 1996, pp. 1410–17.
10. Robert Kemp, Innovation in the Livestock Industry:
Implications for Animal Genetic Improvement Programs
(Ottawa, ON: Canadian Biotechnology Advisory
Committee, 2001); Harvey Blackburn et al., United
States of America Country Report for FAO’s State of the
World’s Animal Genetic Resources (Washington, DC:
146 Vital Signs 2007–2008 www.worldwatch.org
Notes
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2003);
Canadian Farm Animal Genetic Resources Foundation,
The Need for an Animal Genetic Resource Policy
for Canada (Brighton, ON: 2003).
11. Janet Raloff, “Dying Breeds,” Science News, 4 October
1997; Harlan Ritchie, Where is the Beef Seedstock
Industry Headed? (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State
University, 2002).
12. Honeyman, op. cit. note 9; David Pimentel et al.,
“Economic and Environmental Benefits of Biodiversity,”
BioScience, December 1997, pp. 747–57; D. R.
Notter, “The Importance of Genetic Diversity in
Livestock Populations of the Future,” Journal of Animal
Science, January 1999, pp. 61–69.
13. Agricultural Marketing Service, Contracting in Agriculture:
Making the Right Decision (Washington, DC:
USDA, 2006); Neil Harl, “Contract Agriculture: Will
it Tip the Balance?” Leopold Letter (Ames, IA: Iowa
State University, 1998); Collins, op. cit. note 5;
Clare Hinrichs and R. Welsh, “The Effects of the
Industrialization of US Livestock Agriculture on
Promoting Sustainable Production Practices,” Agriculture
and Human Values, June 2003, pp. 125–41.
14. USDA, Structure and Finances of U.S. Farms: 2005
Family Farm Report (Washington, DC: 2005).
15. Oli Brown, Supermarket Buying Power, Global Commodity
Chains and Smallholder Farmers in the Developing
World, Human Development Report Office
Occasional Paper (New York: U.N. Development
Programme, 2005).
16. J. Wilkinson and G. Flexor, Brazilian Agrofood,
Transnationalization and Market Concentration (Rio de
Janiero: Rural Federal University, 2005).
17. Hendrickson and Heffernan, op. cit. note 6.
18. Christopher Delgado et al., “Livestock to 2020: The
Next Food Revolution,” Outlook on Agriculture,
March 2001, pp. 27–29.
19. Myriam Vander Stichele, Sanne van der Wal, and
Joris Oldenziel, Who Reaps the Fruit (Amsterdam:
SOMO, 2005), p. 49.
20. USDA Economic Research Service, Food Price
Spread Briefing Room, at www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/
FoodPriceSpreads, viewed 20 February 2007.
21. National Farmers Union, The Farm Crisis, Bigger
Farms, and the Myths of “Competition” and “Efficiency”
(Saskatoon, SK: 2003), p. 12.
22. See, for example, Emek Basker, Selling a Cheaper
Mousetrap: Wal-Mart’s Effect on Retail Prices (Columbia,
MO: University of Missouri, 2005).
23. Lawrence Weiss, ed., Concentration and Price (Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press, 1989), pp. 266–83;
Bruce Marion et al., “Strategic Groups, Competition
and Retail Food Prices,” in Ronald Cotterill, ed.,
Competitive Strategy Analysis in the Food System
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p. 197;
Ronald Cotterill, “Measuring Market Power in the
Demsetz Quality Critique in the Retail Food Industry,”
Agribusiness, vol. 101, no. 15 (1999); Peter
Carstensen, “Concentration and the Destruction of
Competition in Agricultural Markets: The Case for
Change in Public Policy,” Wisconsin Law Review,
spring 2000, p. 531.
24. Carstensen, op. cit. note 23.
25. Democratic Staff Committee, op. cit. note 5.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. General Accounting Office, Packers and Stockyards
Programs: Actions Needed to Improve Investigations of
Competitive Practices (Washington, DC: 2000).
29. Tescopoly, at www.tescopoly.org, viewed 9 March
2007.
30.Wal-Mart Watch, at walmartwatch.com/issues/labor
_relations, viewed 9 March 2007; Wal-Mart Class
Action, at www.walmartclass.com/public_home
.html, viewed 9 March 2007.
In 2007, meat production remained steady at an estimated 275 million tons; in 2008, output is expected to top 280 million tons.1 (See Figure 1.) Experts predict that
Notes:
- U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "Meat and Meat Products," Food Outlook, June 2008.
- FAO, Livestock's Long Shadow, Environmental Issues and Options (Rome: 2007), p. xx.
- Henning Steinfeld and Pius Chilonda, "Old Players, New Players," in FAO, Livestock Report 2006 (Rome: 2006), p. 3.
- FAO, op. cit. note 1.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- FAO, op. cit. note 3; FAO, op. cit. note 2.
- FAO, FAOSTAT Statistical Database, at apps.fao.org, updated 30 June 2007.
- FAO, Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Rome: 2007).
- FAO, FAOSTAT Statistical Database, at apps.fao.org, updated 24 January 2006; Compassion in World Farming, Laying Hens Fact Sheet, revised January 2004, at www.ciwf.org.uk/publications/Factsheets/Factsheet%20-%20Laying%20Hens%20.pdf.
- M. Pollan, "The Life of a Steer," New York Times, 31 March 2002.
- World Bank, Managing the Livestock Revolution: Policy and Technology to Address the Negative Impacts of a Fast-Growing Sector (Washington, DC: 2005), p. 6.
- Paul Brown et al., "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease: Background, Evolution, and Current Concerns," Emerging Infectious Diseases, January-February 2001, pp. 6-14; World Health Organization, "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy," fact sheet (Geneva: revised November 2002).
- Margaret Mellon, Charles Benbrook, and Karen Lutz Benbrook, Hogging It! Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock (Washington, DC: Union of Concerned Scientists, 2001).
- Ibid.
- FAO, op. cit. note 2.
- Ibid., p. xx.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- FAO, Pollution from Industrialized Livestock Production, Policy Brief 2 (Rome: Livestock Information, Sector Analysis, and Policy Branch, Animal Production and Health Division, undated).
- Ibid.
- L. Baroni et al. "Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Various Dietary Patterns Combined with Different Food Prodution Systems," European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, February 2007, pp. 279-86.
- A. J. McMichael et al. "Food, Livestock Production, Energy, Climate Change, and Health," The Lancet (Energy and Health Series), 6 October 2007, pp. 1253-63.
Included Trends:
World Meat Production, 1961-2007;Meat Production, Per Person, World, Industrial, and Developing Countries, 1961-2007;World Meat Production by Source, 2007
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