How Mergers in the Nation's Agricultural Industry Impact Consumers: Field Hearing Before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, First Session, July 24, 1999 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acquisition ADM's Agri agricultural industry agricultural products alliance Annual Report antitrust laws Archer Daniels Midland Attorney base price beef biotechnology BROILERS buyers Cargill Chemical commodities competition ConAgra ConAgra acquires Congress consolidation consumers Continental Grain corn crop Department of Agriculture Department of Justice Dwayne Andreas economic elevators enforcement export facilities farmers and ranchers Farmland Industries Federal Feedstuffs firms food chain cluster global food system going Grain Company growers Growmark Gruma impact important Jim Peterson joint venture largest livestock major Maki market concentration market power marketplace meat packing meat packing industry mergers Milling monopoly Monsanto Montana Department Montana Farmers National Farmers Union Novartis operations Packers and Stockyard percent Philip Fletcher plant pork PREPARED STATEMENT processing processor purchase rural sector seed sell Senator BURNS share soybeans Steve Bullock Stockyard Act suppliers testimony Thank tion top four trade U.S. Department U.S. SENATOR United USDA vertical integration
Popular passages
Page 30 - The third point is that as the food chain clusters form, with major management decisions made by a small core of firm executives, there is little room left in the global food system for independent farmers.
Page 32 - The centralized food system that continues to emerge was never voted on by the people of this country, or for that matter, the people of the world. It is the product of deliberate decisions made by a very few powerful human actors. This is not the only system that could emerge. Is it not time to ask some critical questions about our food system and about what is in the best interest of this and future generations?
Page 64 - Allocation of markets includes not only agreeing to divide up geographic areas to avoid competition, but also agreeing to divide up customers or suppliers within an area, or agreeing to divide up a sequence of bids. Group boycotts include any agreement among competitors that they will deal with their customers or their suppliers only on particular terms.
Page 66 - For example, in the biogenetics area, last year we investigated Monsanto's acquisition of DeKalb Genetics Corporation. Both companies were leaders in corn seed biotechnology, and owned patents that gave them control over important technology. We expressed strong concerns about how the merger would affect competition for seed, and...
Page 64 - Archer Daniels Midland and others for participating in an international cartel organized to suppress competition for lysine, an important livestock and poultry feed additive. The cartel had inflated the price of this important agricultural input by tens of millions of dollars during the course of the conspiracy. ADM pled guilty and was fined $100 million— at the time the largest criminal antitrust fine in history. Two Japanese and two Korean firms also were prosecuted for their participation in...
Page 32 - For example, over 90 percent of all the commercially produced turkeys in the world come from three breeding flocks. The system is ripe for a new strain of avian flu to evolve for which these birds have no resistance. Similar concerns exist in hog, chicken and dairy cattle genetics.
Page 65 - ... would help to relieve the anxieties of business faced with antitrust uncertainties in their proposed foreign operations. FIVE STEPS OUTLINED We believe that such a program requires at least five elements : 1. There should be an announcement of this clearance procedure by the Department of Justice, or jointly by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The announcement should spell out clearly for the benefit of interested businessmen precisely the steps that must be taken in...
Page 65 - dangerous probability," the courts generally require, for starters, that the firm involved in the restrictive conduct already has a quite large market share. And even a large market share might not be enough, if other facts indicate that the restrictive conduct is unlikely to succeed in creating a monopoly.
Page 23 - ... of the commodities before the food is distributed to millions of people in this and other countries. We focus on the largest four processing firms because the economic literature in the mid-1980's indicated there was general agreement that if four firms had 40 percent of the market, that market was no longer competitive. We realized that this selection was somewhat arbitrary, but it has provided a useful benchmark. When we began collecting the data in the mid-1980's, this information was relatively...
Page 13 - Urban's tireless efforts for a worthy cause over a great number of years, and be it further Resolved: That the Secretary of State send a copy of this resolution to his widow, Gladys Urban.