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Story at-a-glance
- The trend is for fewer but bigger firms increasing their power to control what we eat; at the time Howard wrote his book, four European firms controlled the global beer market; six firms controlled the global seed market; two firms controlled food distribution in the U.S.
- Monopolies benefit corporations — not the public — reinforcing the company’s power and political clout. Many corporate executives even served, and still serve, on federal advisory committees and global trade agreement working groups
- Two-thirds of the farm commodities sold in the U.S. came from just 100,000 farms, and these middle-to-large-scale farms just kept getting bigger, in part by the way government subsidies are doled out
Most of us have little to no idea how behind-the-scenes forces control the food we buy, and the depth of the corruption involved. Philip Howard, Ph.D., author of “Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat?,” studies food system changes, with an emphasis on visualizing these trends.1
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