<
https://theconversation.com/the-global-food-system-is-owned-by-an-ever-smaller-number-of-companies-its-damaging-our-health-our-communities-and-the-planet-232414>
"Across the world, over 800 million people spend their days hungry. More than 2
billion have limited access to food. Yet today’s global food system produces
enough to feed every person on the planet.
This imbalanced situation can be explained in part by the effects of things
like natural disasters, war, fragile supply chains and economic inequality.
These are all significant factors which highlight the problems of a truly
global food system, where shocks spread quickly from one place to another with
sometimes devastating results.
But they do not provide the full picture and cannot fully explain the rise of
ultra-processed foods, the financial difficulties facing farmers, or why the
world has failed to address the harmful environmental impacts of food
production.
To account for these trends, we need to look at market concentration, and how a
small number of very big companies have come to dominate the production and
supply of the food we all eat.
For the global food system has become much more concentrated in recent years,
partly through an increase in mergers and acquisitions, where large firms buy
up rival companies until they completely dominate key areas.
High levels of market concentration mean less transparency, weaker competition,
and more power in the hands of fewer firms. And our research reveals that a
rise in the number of mergers and acquisitions is taking place at all stages of
the global food system – from seeds and fertilisers to machinery and
manufacturing.
This is all part of food being increasingly seen as a source not only of human
sustenance, but as a profitable investment – or what is known as the
“financialisation of food”.
And while people have been buying and selling food for a very long time, the
global system has seen a major incursion of big finance in recent decades.
Pension funds, private equity and asset management firms have invested heavily
in the sector.
The logic is simple. Everybody needs food, so the sector promises safe and
potentially lucrative returns.
But feeding the world while looking after the planet costs money, and
unfortunately, big financial actors are all about the bottom line. They aim to
maximise returns, provide value to shareholders, and meet the expectations of
markets.
This makes mergers and acquisitions an attractive business proposition. Why
make risky, long-term investments in sustainable food solutions, when you can
buy your competitor, increase your market share, and potentially make a lot of
money in the process? By boosting share prices and removing competition,
buy-outs have been used widely throughout the global food system as an easier
way to achieve further growth."
Via Diane A.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
