The Ultimate Agricultural Efficiency
With a ‘thanks’ once again to A.V. Krebs comes this opinion piece from the New York Times:
THE ULTIMATE AGRICULTURAL EFFICIENCY
Editorial New York Times
September 23, 2006Any American history of pork—- the meat, that is—- shows a steady concentration of more and more hogs in the hands of fewer and fewer producers. That is what modern agricultural “efficiency” looks like. It’s good for the bottom line of the big industrial players, but bad for farmers, hogs, the environment and, ultimately, consumers.
That history took another step in the wrong direction when Smithfield Foods—- the biggest pork packer—- agreed to buy the second biggest pork packer, Premium Standard Farms.
This is a deal that deserves to be closely examined by antitrust regulators. It would mean fewer markets for farmers and fewer choices for consumers. Already, packing giants like Smithfield and Premium Standard Farms use their market power, when buying hogs, in ways that violate the spirit of the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, which prohibits undue price discrimination. Their power in the marketplace allows them to negotiate price premiums that smaller packers can’t offer.
The public should also understand what the deal would mean for the future of American farming. It would push farmers still farther down the road to becoming nothing but contract laborers.
There is little or no role for the independent farmer in this landscape. The logic is simple: Why bother to buy pigs from farmers when you can own them yourself? If this deal closes, more than half the pigs Smithfield kills would be pigs it already owns, a percentage that is sure to increase.
The hog farmers’ job would no longer be farming. They would be janitors in confinement barns across rural America where the packers’ huge herds of pigs are crammed in stalls to live out their short lives.
And that would be the ultimate efficiency of American agriculture—- doing away with the farmer by doing away with competitive markets.
Most independent pork producers have already discovered this fact: if you don’t have a ‘semi-load’ to sell…. you don’t have a buyer. Independent sale barns have closed nearly everywhere and the ‘free market’ for pork is dwindling in favor of contract growers that promote a certain type of industrial efficiency. Packer ownership of livestock will only further industrial efficiencies as a way of life dwindles to a final generation.