Updated on 6/09/08
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.
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.
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.
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.
U.S. Farm Bill and the EU Common Agriculture Policy at Crossroads -
A Global Dialogue on U.S., Canadian and EU Agriculture policies
Conference Report, 14 and 15 May 2007
Charles Sumner School, Washington D.CLEVELING 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.
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.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.
