The tendency toward concentration and consolidation among the handful of global corporations which control agricultural inputs, financing, and processing markets is usually portrayed as the inevitable result of freer markets and more efficient, technologically advanced methods. In fact, the emergence of monopoly power in the agribusiness sector has more to do with political influence and public policy than with free markets.
Corporate industry groups use their money and access to shape domestic legislation and international trade rules, enhancing their market dominance through favorable subsidies, tax breaks, export credits and trade barriers. Lacking this type of influence, small producers in the U.S. are forced into contractual sale agreements, through which their farm-gate prices are artificially depressed below the point at which they can cover their original investment. Meanwhile, small producers in the developing world find their markets overrun with subsidized imports from the U.S. and Europe, with which they cannot compete.
For these reasons we clearly see this as a global issue and welcome contacts from around the world. Fully one-half of the world’s population still depends on their own agricultural production to feed their families and generate income. At the same time, 60% of extreme poverty is located in rural areas. Small and medium farmers the world over need secure land-use rights, access to credit, insurance, appropriate technology, and competitive markets in order to prosper and contribute to rural development processes. But the evolution of the global food industry drives small producers out of farming and off the land at alarming rates, despite the absence of viable alternative employment, especially in developing countries.
Added to all this, consumers and communities are increasingly seeking safe, nutritious, affordable and accessible food, while industry tends to offer highly processed, unhealthy and often unsafe products that are generally priced cheaply for consumers in the U.S. but beyond the means of hungry people in developing countries.
The Agribusiness Accountability Initiative (AAI) works toward reform of the global agricultural system to release markets from the stranglehold of excessively concentrated large conglomerates. AAI is now an established network of individuals and organizations with expertise and experience in various dimensions of agribusiness reform. We share information among farmers, consumers, farmworkers, labor groups, consumers, environmentalists, health professionals, faith-based groups and development activists in five global regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. We share analysis and strategies for challenging corporate dominance in agriculture and campaign for more equitable agricultural markets.
AAI aims to complement existing efforts to make agribusiness corporations more accountable for the social, environmental and anti-democratic consequences of their current behavior, and also to create new opportunities for coordination among AAI participants to maximize the success of their ongoing efforts.
