The Obama Administration raised hopes among U.S. farmers and consumers two years ago with its unprecedented series of public hearings on concentration in U.S. agricultural markets. The five hearings, convened by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Justice, took up key grievances about unhealthy levels of corporate power in agricultural value chains. (See my earlier blog post and my submitted comments on buyer power in hog markets.) The hearings showed a commitment to anti-trust enforcement in a sector that desperately needed it. No such luck. Journalist Alan Guebert, in a recent syndicated column, explains how this reform effort, like so many others in the last two years, has been largely gutted in a polarized Washington awash in lobbying money.
Bigger and bigger and …
Alan Guebert
(Reprinted by permission of author)
It was, literally, a sight for sore eyes.
Two years ago March 12, trumpets blasted in Ankeny, IA, as America’s new gladiators for agricultural justice—U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., his antitrust chief Christine Varney, U.S. Department of Agriculture boss Tom Vilsack and hundreds of farmers—gathered for a day-long discussion on “competitive dynamics of the seed industry; trends in contracting issues, marketplace transparency and buyer power; and agriculture enforcement and cooperation at the Federal and state levels.”