| Chapter 1: | ADM, A Tomato Named Local Lucy, and Small Farms: The Ecology and Reemergence of Farmers’ Markets |
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The food is different. The priority for the food grown in the global systems is based on the ability to be shipped great distances. “The dominant tendency is toward distance and durability…More rapidly and deeply than before, transnational agri-food capital disconnects production from consumption and relinks them through buying and selling” (Friedmann, 1994, p. 268).
The players in the global food system are different. The companies are vast in size and are not tied to a single national allegiance. Frequently they are wealthier than the countries in which they do business. These corporations are qualitatively and quantitatively different from anything that came before them. The size of these firms has long since passed the limit where economies of scale accumulate. They are huge and have many sourcing options (Heffernan & Constance, 1994).
The scale and power of these companies in the United States alone is staggering. The operation of these companies has a tremendous effect on agriculture here. Hendrickson and Heffernan (2005) periodically calculate what they referred to as the “CR4” for a variety of sectors of agribusiness. The CR4 is the concentration ratio (relative to 100%) of the top four firms in a specific food industry. For instance, 83.5% of the beef-packing industry is controlled by Tyson Foods, Cargill, Swift & Company, and National Beef Packing Company. This is up from 72% in 1990. Nearly two thirds (64%) of the pork packing industry is controlled by Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods, Swift & Company, and Hormel Foods. This is up from 37% in 1987. Nearly half (46%) of food retailing is controlled by five companies: Wal-Mart Stores, Kroger Company, Albertsons, Inc., Safeway, Inc., and Ahold USA, Inc. This is up from 24% in 1997. A 2002 edition of the report showed that Cargill, Cenex, ADM, and General Mills controlled 60% of terminal grain-handling facilities—which means a large portion of the global market for grains is influenced by four companies (Hendrickson & Heffernan, 2002).