Hope's Edge_ The Next Diet for a Small Planet - Frances Moore Lappe [34]
As our stereotypes crumble, we have to get better and better at perceiving the important distinctions. Instead of talking in “isms,” we must learn to determine how power is actually distributed in a society. For example, both of these African countries have a one-party system, so some might place them in the “totalitarian” category. I learned that what matters most is not the number of parties in the government, but whom the government really represents—and whether it is accountable to the majority of people.
Unlearning our rigid categories means learning to think of every society as in a process of change rather than static. (A friend of mine once observed: “What’s wrong with Americans is that we want progress without change.”) Americans do sense the dramatic changes taking place all around us, and many feel overwhelmed and paralyzed. To break out of our fears, we at the Institute believe, we must first make sense out of these changes—we must understand their roots and their consequences. This is the first step toward moving our society in constructive change. So the Institute has launched a major new investigation. It is not taking me to Maputo, Mozambique, or Davao City, the Philippines. Rather, I am asking: What is the meaning of the critical changes taking place in our food and agricultural system here in the United States?
The Underdevelopment of U.S. Agriculture
Studying third world agricultural problems for ten years, I began to see a pattern of “underdevelopment” that included these three elements: the concentration of economic power as the gap between the rich and the poor widens; dependency and instability of both the society as a whole and of more and more people within it; and finally, the mining of agricultural resources for the benefit of a minority.
The agriculture of so many third world countries can be described in these terms. But what about the United States? Doesn’t it have the world’s most productive agriculture? Don’t we have a system of family farms, not plantations run by a landed elite? And don’t we have long-established conservation programs to prevent the mining of our soil and water?
Many believe so, but what I am learning is that each of these patterns of underdevelopment—the kind of society I don’t want—is taking hold right here in America.
CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER
Control over farmland is becoming increasingly concentrated. In just 20 years, it is predicted, a mere 3 percent of all farms will control two-thirds of farm production.4 The amount of farmland controlled by absentee landlords will increase. (Already almost half of U. S. farmland is owned by nonfarmers.5) Donald Paarlberg, among the most highly regarded agricultural economists in the country, warns us: “We are developing a wealthy hereditary landowning class, which is contrary to American tradition.”6
U. S. farmland, at present anyway, is actually much less tightly controlled than the rest of the food industry, which is now dominated by what economists call “shared monopolies.” This means that in almost any given food category, only four corporations control at least half of the sales. In 33 categories, only four companies control two-thirds of the sales. For some foods, the monopoly power is much greater: three corporations—Kellogg’s, General Mills, and General Foods—capture over 90 percent of breakfast cereal sales.7
Such market power spells profits: between 1973 and 1979, food industry profits rose 46 percent faster than consumer food expenditures. And this monopoly power spells higher food costs for all of us. Monopoly power in the food processing industry results in close to $20 billion in overcharges to American consumers each year, or almost $90 per year for every single American.8 That’s how much more we pay compared to prices in a more competitve food economy.
In fact, at every stage of the food industry concentration is tightening. During just the last ten years 20 “Fortune 500” corporations have acquired at least 60 U.S.–based seed companies.9