National Farmers’ Union | Salina, Kansas | August 22, 1918 Declare the Five Big Packers Control One-Half of Meat Supply of Allied Nations — Have Used Their Power to Manipulate Livestock Market. President Wilson has made public the recently filed report of the special commission appointed some time ago to investigate the alleged monopolies tie to the control of the meat industry by the big packing companies. The commission declares that the five big packers control half of Read More …
Government has made ‘appalling lack of progress’ since 2008, center says; animal groups see bias Des Moines Register – October 23, 2013 A new report blames U.S. leaders for failing to take stronger action to remedy what the group says are public health, environmental, animal welfare and rural community problems created by the industrial food animal production system. A new analysis from the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future finds that the Obama administration and Congress Read More …
“It’s not an opinion, it’s a mathematical fact, tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America.” – Dylan Ratigan Dylan Ratigan is mad as hell. Infuriated by government corruption and corporate communism, incensed by banksters shaking down taxpayers, and despairing of an ailing health care system, an age-old dependency on foreign oil, and a failing education system, Ratigan sees an America that has allowed itself to be swindled and robbed. In Greedy Read More …
BY LINA KHAN In July, the public learned that Goldman Sachs and several other large banks have morphed into giant merchants of physical goods, routinely shipping oil, running power plants, and amassing stocks of metals so large that Coca Cola accused them of hoarding. It was a disconcerting moment, as regulators realized that firms so recently known for their explosive mortgage-backed securities also deal in goods that can literally explode. These activities mean that banks supplying credit to Read More …
AAI Working Paper No. 13-05: by Author: C. Robert Taylor and Diana L. Moss Fertilizers are a critical input in the agricultural sector where industrial farming is heavily dependent on external inputs of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium or potash. A history of supra-competitive pricing by the few, large global producers of fertilizer inputs – coupled with characteristics that make the market conducive to anticompetitive coordination (i.e., collusion) – raise significant competitive concerns. This working paper qualitatively and quantitatively Read More …
Fifteen years ago, in responding to the question of why producers were receiving so little for their livestock, Dr. John Helmuth (economist, meat industry expert, and longtime critic of meat industry consolidation) said, “There is an economic term to describe this phenomenon: It is called stealing.” Compared to a competitive time in the industry in the 1970’s, the monopoly power of the big retailers and meat packers has left today’s cattle producers nearly $600 per head short of Read More …
“We are in for a series of years with very low prices with very strenuous circumstances” – Daryll E. Ray, Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics and Director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center (APAC) at the University of Tennessee Daryll E Ray received the 2013 Organization for Competitive Markets John Helmuth Award. “I knew John Helmuth for many years as tried to address excessive meatpacker market power,” said Mike Callicrate, OCM President. “Helmuth was one of the Read More …
In my experience in talking with students and groups of people outside the university is it that they are very eager to have meaningful give and take discussions on alternative food systems … that discussion rarely occurs in a Land Grant University setting. The Land Grant system was created 151 years ago intended for teaching, research and outreach and service for the middle class, for common people for working class … it had public interest orientation and was Read More …