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Time to act on food price speculation, says Agribusiness Accountability Initiative |
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PRESS RELEASE
Accra, April 21st, 2008 Time to act on food price speculation, says Agribusiness Accountability Initiative The U.N. Conference on Trade & Development should follow the logic of its own
arguments and act against the devastating impact of financial speculation on the world’s food markets, the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative (AAI) said in Accra today. |
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AAI North America US Farm Bill Working Group's latest Issue Briefs - Issue Brief #5 |
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LEVELING THE FIELD - ISSUE BRIEF #5
Milking the System:
How Corporate Power Impacts Dairy Producers, Consumers and Communities—And How We Can Regain Control Over Our Dairy Supply This issue brief is the last in a series called Leveling the Field. Earlier briefs have taken a bird’s-eye view of the many challenges facing livestock producers and workers, agricultural communities, and food consumers in the United States. We’ve looked at how a small group of very large companies—companies like Tyson, Smithfield, and Cargill—is shaping our food system in the interest of profits rather than environmental or community health, nutritional wellbeing, or long-term sustainability. We’ve also looked at the ways that communities and organizations are responding to these challenges: improving the system we have while building new alternatives that bypass big corporate players. |
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AAI North America US Farm Bill Working Group's Latest Issue Briefs - Issue Brief #4 |
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LEVELING THE FIELD - ISSUE BRIEF #4
Hogging the Market:
How Powerful Meat Packers are Changing our Food System and What We can do About it.
In their book Food, Society, and Environment, Charles Harper and Bryan Le Beau ask readers to envision the food production system as an hourglass. On one end are millions of farmers, ranchers, and farm workers raising crops and livestock; in the middle are a small number of companies that carry out the slaughtering, packing, processing, and distribution of food; and on the other end, purchasing food from that small group of processors and distributors, are millions of consumers. That small neck in the middle of the hourglass—the packers and processors—may not be a part of the food chain that we often think about. But meat packers and processors have an immense amount of power over the shape of our food system, and the power that they exercise can have harmful effects on both ends of the hourglass—closing markets to independent livestock producers and affecting the price and safety of meat for consumers—as well as on the safety and health of the workers these packers employ. |
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Civil Society statement on the World Food Emergency, No More "Failures-as-Usual"! |
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Civil Society statement on the World Food Emergency No More "Failures-as-Usual"! Historic, systemic failures of governments and international institutions are responsible.
National governments that will meet at the FAO Food Crisis Summit in Rome must begin by accepting their responsibility for today’s food emergency. At the World Food Summit in 1996, when there were an estimated 830 million hungry people, governments pledged to halve the number by 2015. Many now predict that the number will instead increase by 50% to 1.2 billion, further threatened by unpredictable climate chaos and the additional pressures of agrofuel production. |
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AAI North America US Farm Bill Working Group's three New Issue Briefs - Issue Brief # 3 |
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LEVELING THE FIELD – ISSUE BRIEF #3 Power Buyers, Power Sellers: How Supermarkets Impact Farmers, Workers and Consumers—
and How We Can Build a Fairer Food System The next time you visit the supermarket, glance down the aisle and ask yourself a question. How much choice do I have when it comes to deciding what food I buy? At first glance, it probably seems like you have quite a bit of choice. Hundreds of different products line the shelves; in some cases, you may be able to find ten or more brands of the same product. With immigrant communities growing in both urban and rural areas, it is now possible to find a variety of “international” foods alongside the traditional ones in many supermarkets. Some stores now carry organic, natural, or other specialty products as well. |
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COSTA RICA AND TRADE POLICY - Congressional Record: October 1, 2007 (Senate) |
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Central American Free Trade Agreement Click here for a report of testimony in PDF format |
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"Organic, With Pesticides: Some farmers in China are taking advantage of confusing rules to falsely label food." |
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"Organic, With Pesticides: Some farmers in China are taking advantage of confusing rules to falsely label food." A special report by Chi-Chu Tschang in BusinessWeek (July 30, 2007) Click here for the report in PDF format |
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Supermarket Library |
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Europe, Supermarket Profiles, International supply chains, US |
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What's Wrong with Supermarkets |
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Corporate Watch, April 2004
An updated edition of the fully referenced 40 page A5 booklet, which critically analyses the way in which UK
supermarkets shape the production and consumption of food. Also available is a four page briefing based on the same research material which provides a short analysis of the so called 'choice, convenience and value' offered by supermarkets.
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ASDA/Wal-Mart: a corporate profile |
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Corporate Watch, November 2004
A profile of Asda and owners Wal-Mart, the largest company and arguably 'the most ruthless employer' in the world |
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EU Competition Rules and future developments from the perspective of farmers and small suppliersHouse of Commons All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group |
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A report commissioned by the UK Food Group to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law In 2004, which focuses on relevant EU competition policy and includes proposals that could be of assistance to organisations calling for legislation to curb the power of supermarkets. |
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Anti-competitive practices in the distribution sector in developing countries |
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A paper outlining Korean Fair Trade regulations in response to TNC investment in the distribution sector, especially related to Wal-Mart, Carrefour and other market domination issues. |
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The Large retail sector – trends and impacts on farmers and consumers |
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A report by the European Economic and Social Committee |
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The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America |
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Thomas Reardon, C. Peter Timmer, Christopher B. Barrett, Julio Berdegue, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 85 (5), December 2003
This report looks at the rise of supermarkets in these regions in the past decade, where they are now no longer just niche players for rich consumers in the capital cities. This has transformed agri-food markets, at different rates and depths across regions and countries. Many of those transformations present great challenges - even exclusion - for small farms, processing and distribution firms, as well as benefits.
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High Street Britain: 2015 |
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House of Commons All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group, January 2006
The report, analysing evidence collected during the group's inquiry into the prospects of the small retail sector, reflected the belief that due to the unbalanced trading environment many small shops will have ceased trading by 2015, with people, as consumers and members of communities, standing to be severely disadvantaged.
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AAI North America US Farm Bill Working Group's three New Issue Briefs - Issue Brief # 2 |
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LEVELING THE FIELD – ISSUE BRIEF #2 Environmental and Health Problems
in Livestock Production:
Pollution in the Food System
Over the last thirty years, the livestock production system in the United States has undergone an industrial revolution. The number of animals raised for meat has been steady or growing, even as the number of farms raising animals has declined. Today, we have only a quarter the number
of hog farms we had in 1982, but the number of hogs sold has gone up. How is that possible? Only because of a major change in the way livestock are produced—a change that affects farmers, consumers, businesses, and our communities.
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La Via Campesina - Globalization and the Power of Peasants |
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This book is a comprehensive, informative, and intelligent analysis of the current global agrarian resistance to the industrialization and corporatization of farming. |
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AAI North America US Farm Bill Working Group's three New Issue Briefs - Issue Brief # 1 |
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LEVELING THE FIELD – ISSUE BRIEF #1 Corporate Power in Livestock Production: How it’s Hurting Farmers, Consumers, and Communities – And What We Can Do About It. You don’t have to live on a farm to know that there have been big changes in the agricultural sector over the last few decades. The United States has a much smaller number of farms and ranches today than it did even ten years ago. In fact, fewer than 600,000 full-time family farms provide most of the domestically produced food we eat. These operations must deal with a small and increasingly powerful group of input suppliers—seed, pesticide, fertilizer, and livestock genetics dealers—and an equally concentrated group of buyers for their product. |
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Concentrated Market Power and Agricultural Trade |
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Concentrated Market Power and Agricultural Trade. (S Murphy, IATP, published by the EcoFair Trade Dialogue, September 2006) The author states “…globalization has decreased competition for the dominant buyers: grain companies, food processors, and supermarkets. And farmers are already disadvantaged…” The paper identified supermarkets and input (seed and pesticide) companies as the most significant new drivers in the global food trade. The paper calls on governments to review their national competition strategies to ensure both producer and consumer interests are addressed. The paper can be found at www.iatp.org and more details about the EcoFair Trade Dialogue can be found at www.ecofair- trade.org . |
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A case study of environmental and socio-economic valuation in the Amazon soy frontier |
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From colonization to “environmental soy”: A case study of environmental and socio-economic valuation in the Amazon soy frontier. (C. Steward, Grassroots International. “Agriculture and Human Values”, Springer, 2007.) Government policies and perspectives have been shaped by a history of agrarian colonization of Amazon forests. The soy actors’ (local government, agribusiness, conservation NGOs, and small farmers) definition of environmental degradation is key in determining who “wins” and “loses” in the realm of Amazon development. The dominant definitions do not help the livelihood struggles of the small farmers. There are “more than trees here” and the small farmers are trying to ensure their agro-biodiversity contributions to the region are valued. |
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Food First Policy Brief |
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Food First Policy Brief No.12: Ten Reasons Why the Rockefeller and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations’ Alliance for Another Green Revolution Will Not Solve the Problems of Poverty and Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa. (E Holt-Gimenez, MA Altieri, P Rosset, Food First Institute for Food and Development Policy, Oakland, CA, October 2006) |
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Local Food Systems |
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Local Food Systems: Challenges and Threats (Environmental Concerns, January 2007) A series of fact sheets on the importance of local control in supporting healthy regional food systems are available online to raise awareness and inspire action for strong local food systems. The series also includes Shaping our Local Food Systems, Local Food Systems: Getting Involved, and The Place of Food in Our Lives. This great tool kit can be downloaded from http://www.environmentalcommons.org/LocalFood/ |
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Implicit Subsidies to the Broiler Chicken Industry |
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Feeding the Factory Farm: Implicit Subsidies to the Broiler Chicken Industry. (E Starmer, A Witterman, T Wise, Global Development & Environment Website, June 2006) Farm policy reforms have provoked a sharp drop in livestock fee prices, which has been a boon to industrial livestock operations purchasing feed from the market. The broiler chicken industry alone has saved an average of $1.25 billion per year since 1996, compared to what it would have to pay if the market price of feed accurately reflected the cost of producing it. The paper can be viewed at http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/BroilerGains.htm . |
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A case study of environmental and socio-economic valuation in the Amazon soy frontier |
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From colonization to "environmental soy": A case study of environmental and socio-economic valuation in the Amazon soy frontier. (C. Steward, Grassroots International. "Agriculture and Human Values", Springer, 2007.) Government policies and perspectives have been shaped by a history of agrarian colonization of Amazon forests. The soy actors' (local government, agribusiness, conservation NGOs, and small farmers) definition of environmental degradation is key in determining who "wins" and "loses" in the realm of Amazon development. The dominant definitions do not help the livelihood struggles of the small farmers. There are "more than trees here" and the small farmers are trying to ensure their agro-biodiversity contributions to the region are valued. |
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2006 Annual Meeting Of The Agri-Food Research Network |
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Agri-Food XIII
27 November - 30 November 2006 ~ University of Otago, Dunedin |
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