In my view, the #1 most important significant change we can make in our food system is breaking up anticompetitive businesses that control too much of the market of whatever they are selling. And I'm not alone in thinking that the U.S. government needs to look at consolidation in agriculture. In addition to rumors that the DOJ is looking at market concentration in the seed and the dairy industries, the NYT recently ran an editorial calling out Monsanto for dominating the seed industry:
Following a decade of unchecked consolidation, it is time for the Justice Department to take a hard look at potentially anticompetitive behavior.
A good place to start is with Monsanto, which is trying to block DuPont from adding its own genetic traits to Monsanto's Roundup Ready technology to produce soybeans that would be resistant to multiple pesticides. Seeds carrying Monsanto's genes can resist Roundup, the ubiquitous weedkiller. They are the dominant standard in American fields - present in 97 percent of the soybean crops and 79 percent of the corn, akin to Microsoft Windows on computers.
They conclude that "No company should dominate such an essential business."
Yesterday the New York Times printed Monsanto's response. They basically say that we must make better seeds in order to feed the world in a sustainable way, and Monsanto invests more in this than anyone else - including their competitors. Therefore, Monsanto concludes, we oughta leave them alone and let them do their thing.
That's bullshit. Monsanto has a big chunk of the market share in the seed industry. When the top 4 companies control 40% of the market, they can manipulate the market unfairly. For seeds the top 4 companies control 75% of the market. There's no question that Monsanto's size is a problem for fair competition.
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