Earlier this month, IATP and allies responded to a call for input by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food on Concentration of corporate power in global food systems and its implications for the realization of the right to food. Our joint submission will inform the Special Rapporteur’s upcoming thematic report to the UN General Assembly in October. We are grateful to the Friends of the Earth U.S. for coordinating the inputs from all co-submitters — BankTrack, Foodrise, Rainforest Action Network and IATP.
In our joint submission we emphasized how each stage of the food supply chain is dominated by a handful of companies and argued that this concentration results largely from horizontal and vertical mergers that reduce competition, and typically increase market share or control over related markets. Our submission also demonstrated the ways in which the global financial system profits from the corporate agribusiness model, and how private financial institutions fund the growth of agribusiness corporations.
Essentially, the corporate food system works in tandem with the global financial system: financial institutions provide the capital that fuels the expansion of agribusiness, allowing companies to scale operations, acquire land, and invest in infrastructure, and that.
We emphasized how the dominance of large corporate actors and their practice of wielding power in political decision-making spaces, gives them the ability to shape markets and further accumulate capital, particularly through legally enforceable mechanisms such as free trade agreements. The submission had several suggestions regarding legislation needed to limit the growing corporate concentration and power in food systems and to hold corporations accountable, emphasizing that “financial regulation is needed to limit the impunity of corporations and their financiers, and eliminate financial flows driving human rights violations and environmental impacts.” This should include integrating biodiversity risks into risk management and establishing mandatory due diligence systems over supply chains.
Alternative food systems must prioritize rights-based approaches over market-based mechanisms in order to strengthen community autonomy and reduce health and diet inequalities. We also pointed to “Farm to Institution” initiatives that source local food for hospitals and schools[1] with a focus on small and midscale farm-holders and local processers and emerging farmers, thereby connecting them to markets, as an example of alternatives that direct public procurement dollars to support local communities.
Please read our joint submission here.
[1] See: Healthy Food, Healthy Hospitals, Healthy Communities (2005) by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; and more on Farm to School efforts from the USDA.
