Food in the News by Shelley Lance/Blog Editor
Nice to wake up to an encouraging food-news story on the radio this morning. NPR reports that “Small Farmers See Promise in Obama’s Plans.” Here’s an excerpt:
“Since the 1980’s, American agriculture has become increasingly concentrated. Today, less than 2 percent of farms account for half of all agricultural sales. The new antitrust division of President Obama’s Justice Department has said that scrutinizing monopolies in agriculture is a top priority.
That shift is giving hope to independent farmers, who have complained for years that agriculture giants are shrinking the marketplace and paying farmers less for their products.”
What are the Obama administration’s priorities on this issue?
“The first is seed companies. The American Antitrust Institute asserts that in some markets, Monsanto controls 90 percent of the technology behind genetically modified seeds for cotton, corn, and soybeans. Monsanto disputes that figure.
The second segment is beef packing. And the third is dairy, where consolidation has been especially dramatic. Int he last decade, more than 4,500 dairy farms disappeared every year.
The decline, critics claim, is at least partly the result of collusive and exclusionary tactics by Big Milk.”
Read the whole article from NPR’s website here.
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