In the week leading up to this first workshop, the DOJ did something radical... sort of. They tentatively agreed that farmers should be represented (you know, given that the workshop is about, um, FARMING).
The U.S. departments of justice and agriculture at least tentatively agree that the voices of individuals who make a direct living off the land should be featured in an upcoming joint antitrust workshop in Ankeny.
That happened AFTER the initial agenda "drew the ire of rural activists when the announced slate of participants was severely lacking direct farmer and producer input." At that point, Sen. Harkin spoke up, asking the DOJ & USDA to actually include farmers.
The agenda then changed to include 45 minutes of presentations from the following:
- Ken Fawcett, independent crop farmer, eastern Iowa
- Jim Foster, hog producer, Montgomery City, Mo.
- Pam Johnson, farmer, Floyd, Iowa
- Eric Nelson, grain and cattle farmer, Moville, Iowa
- Todd Wiley, hog producer, Walker, Iowa
- Melvin Crum, corn, soybean and cotton farmer, South Carolina (tentative)
But then take a look at who these people really are. Yes, they are farmers, but the article points out at least some of them have "third party affiliations" that make them not exactly the perfect representatives of the voice of the average farmer.
Wiley, who is co-owner and managing partner of Interstate Swine LLC, is affiliated with the National Pork Producers Council as a producer with contract growers. In other words, he is a large-scale producer who contracts with other farmers for care of his livestock. He also already has ties with the USDA since he was one of 154 pork producers nationally named by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to the 2010 National Pork Producers Delegate Body.
However, Nelson and Foster serve on the board of directors for the Organization for Competitive Markets, a Lincoln, Neb.-based public policy research organization that has been incredibly outspoken against big business dominance in the industry.
To ensure the voices of all are heard (at least by somebody - if not the DOJ), the day before the hearing, March 11, a group of grassroots groups and nonprofits will hold a town hall to discuss the issues associated with corporate consolidation in agribusiness. They say:
"The corporate control of our food system by multinationals like Cargill, Monsanto, and Wal-Mart is devastating to consumers, farmers, workers, and the environment," said Barb Kalbach, an Iowa CCI board member and fourth-generation family farmer from Dexter, Iowa in Adair County.
Decades of bad farm policy and unchecked corporate mergers have driven independent family farmers out of business and created powerful corporate factory farms and agribusiness giants that dominate the market. More than 85 percent of U.S. beef cattle are slaughtered by just four companies, two companies control more than half of U.S. corn seed, one company controls 40 percent of the U.S. fluid milk supply, and five corporations dominate the grocery sector. With fewer players involved at every step in the food chain, consumers pay more and farmers and workers get paid less, while the multinational corporations' share of the retail dollar continues to climb.
"After years of ignoring the corporate concentration and lack of competition in our food system, the DOJ and USDA are finally admitting that there might be a problem," said Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now! from Clear Lake, Iowa in Cerro Gordo County. "Unfortunately family farmers, consumer advocates, and organized labor are underrepresented on the panels at the DOJ/USDA anti-trust workshop. This grassroots townhall meeting is essential to ensure that the voices of the people most affected by this problem are heard loud and clear."
In addition to the complaints that farmers will not be adequately represented in the workshop, Pesticide Action Network sent the following letter about their concern, that the workshop will not allow for much in the way of public comments.
March 8, 2010
Christine Varney
Assistant Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
450 5th Street, NW, Suite 11700
Washington, DC 20001
FAX: 202-616-2645
Re: Farmer and Public Participation in Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy Workshop, Ankeny, Iowa
Dear Ms. Varney:
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) applauds the Department of Justice (DOJ) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for an historic joint investigation of corporate consolidation in the agriculture industry. As part of an international citizens' action network working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with safe, secure and fair alternatives, we are committed to ensuring domestic and global food security, and working toward equitable and environmentally sustainable farming.
PANNA, together with our network of more than 600 organizations in over 90 countries, and our thousands of members in the United States, are deeply concerned about the degree of corporate consolidation and market concentration in the U.S. agricultural, food processing, and retailing sectors. We are particularly concerned about concentration in the agrichemical and seed sectors, and how this concentration limits options for farmers, undermines scientific understanding and has led to undue influence on federal regulatory processes by agrichemical corporations.
We strongly support the DOJ and USDA's intention to prioritize farmer and public input regarding these issues and look forward to attending the Ankeny, Iowa Issues of Concerns to Farmers workshop on March 12, 2010. As the first workshop of the series, the Ankeny event is particularly important: many eyes will be on the DOJ and USDA this week, and skepticism regarding the sincerity of the agencies' commitment to listening to the public will either be put to rest or inflamed, depending on the day's results. Unfortunately, the agenda recently released by DOJ and USDA indicates that only limited time has been allocated for public comments.
We believe the current agenda severely limits time for the DOJ and USDA to hear viewpoints from communities directly impacted by growing concentration in the seed industry, vertical integration, lack of market transparency, and shifts in buyer power within the agriculture industry. The current agenda includes a mere forty-five minutes for Farmer Presentation of Issues and one-hour for Public Testimony at the very end (which in all likelihood could be severely truncated by the day's end). We at PANNA do not anticipate this being nearly enough time for farmers and the public to share with the DOJ and USDA how these issues affect their livelihoods.
Furthermore, since last week, media reports have been drawing attention to the scarcity of time allocated for farmers' voices and members of Congress are raising similar concerns. We fear that the credibility of the sponsoring agencies may be tarnished by this scheduling imbalance and that public willingness to participate in future workshops in the series this year could also be
jeopardized.
PANNA believes that the DOJ and USDA's anti-trust workshop series addresses questions of utmost importance to every American. We sincerely hope that the series will succeed, and that in doing so, it will provide a space in which people from all walks of life can explain to policymakers and responsible agencies how their lives have been affected by trends in corporate concentration and share their proposals for change. In order to restore confidence in the antitrust workshop series, we therefore respectfully urge the DOJ and USDA to consider revising the Ankeny, Iowa agenda to expand significantly the time allocated for farmer and public comment.
Specifically, we suggest that a full half of the morning session (one and a half hours) be devoted to the formal Farmer Presentation of Issues, and that the public comment period be moved from the end of the afternoon session to the period immediately following the lunch break. This critical session is the DOJ and USDA's opportunity to hear the unique voices, stories - and proposals for how to create a more vibrant, fair and competitive marketplace in the agriculture industry - of farmers, farmworkers, consumers and other members of the public. Having the public comment period start the afternoon session will provide a useful grounding and "real-life context" for the subsequent panel presentations. It would also demonstrate the DOJ's commitment to public participation.
PANNA strongly believes that we need a fully participatory and transparent process as the Department of Justice considers these concerns. The DOJ and USDA inquiry can benefit greatly with an agenda that allows ample time for farmers and the public to share their viewpoints.
Thank you for the opportunity to attend this workshop series on these important issues and best wishes as you move forward in addressing one of the most critical issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Gilje
Executive Director
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD
Senior Scientist
Cc: Mark Tobey, Special Counsel for State Relations and Agriculture
|
