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Titans of Industrial Agriculture

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Titans of Industrial Agriculture

How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters (One Planet)

MIT Press,

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Massive firms control the world’s agriculture.

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Giant firms now control the world’s agricultural industry, according to professor Jennifer Clapp, the Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. She describes a two-century shift from family farms and tiny plots to an industry dominated by multinational conglomerates. Clapp is critical of the tools of consolidation, from seeds to pesticides to tractors. She delves deeply into changes in the agricultural industry from a business perspective, though without fully explicating all the ways its consolidation affects consumers.

Summary

A few companies dominate the world’s agricultural sector.

The global farming industry is unusually concentrated. For example, Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta Group, and BASF have cornered the market on seeds and pesticides. John Deere, Kubota, AGCO, and CNH Industrial control the combine and tractor markets. A few centuries ago, farming was far more decentralized. Farmers supplied their own seeds and fertilizer, used planting patterns that warded off pests, and built their own tools.

A handful of big players now dominates the industry. Public policy favoring consolidation, a rush to maintain any technological edge, and big-firm financial advantages have driven a wave of consolidation that benefits the largest players. As these firms grew even larger, dominant players snapped up smaller rivals that produced promising technology. Much as consolidation in Big Tech raised concerns, skeptics wonder whether the world’s population can trust a shrinking group of giant agriculture companies with the global food supply.

A handful of big players controls the farm machinery market.

A wave of innovation hit the agricultural sector in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Inventors...

About the Author

Jennifer Clapp, PhD, is the Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. She also wrote Food; Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture; and Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid.

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