Fact Sheets: Factory Farms

Roundup herbicide. Agent Orange. PCBs. Genetically engineered seeds. These may not seem related, but they all have something in common: Monsanto.

The agriculture and food sector is unusually concentrated, with just a few companies dominating the market in each link of the food chain. In most sectors of the U.S. economy, the four largest firms control between 40 and 45 percent of the market, and many economists maintain that higher levels of concentration can start to erode competitiveness. Yet according to data compiled by the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2012, in the agriculture and food sector, the four largest companies controlled 82 percent of the beef packing industry, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of broiler chicken processing.

The biotechnology industry is aggressively promoting the environmental sustainability of genetically engineered (GE) crops. The industry claims that GE crops can reduce herbicide use, increase yields to feed a hungry planet, and develop new crops that are adapted to climate change.

With the rise of GE crops, coexistence between organic, non-GE and GE production has become more diffi cult due to the potential for gene flow and commingling of crops at both the planting and harvesting levels.

The poultry industry continues to influence lawmakers to prioritize corporate interests over public health, sound food policy and environmental concerns. Citizens in Maryland and in other states are being asked to bail the industry out of its massive waste problem by financing poultry litter incinerators.

Savefarmfamilies.org, a website launched on September 15, 2011, was purportedly created to help Alan and Kristin Hudson, who own a poultry operation located near Maryland’s Eastern Shore, pay their mounting legal bills from a lawsuit filed by the environmental non-profit Waterkeeper Alliance and its local member program, Assateague Coastkeeper. It claims to be a grassroots effort to help save the “family farm,” including the Hudsons’, from radical environmental groups. Unfortunately, it attempts to do so by perpetuating many myths about industrial chicken operations in Maryland and the lawsuit itself. In fact, SaveFarmFamilies.org is an “astroturfing” effort — an industry-generated website used to spread misinformation while purporting to be by farmers, for farmers. This fact sheet is intended to debunk some of the many inaccuracies and misstatements promoted by the website.

The earnings of all but the richest people in America have been stagnant for the past four decades, making it harder for both urban and rural families to put healthy food on the table. The recession made the problem of food insecurity worse. By 2009, one in every seven rural residents and one in every nine urban residents received food stamps. How can we turn things around and build a healthier, fairer food system?

In early 2008, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it considered meat and milk from cloned animals to be safe to eat despite years of controversy and a long list of unresolved ethical, health and animal welfare concerns. In concert with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), regulators asked the livestock industry to continue a voluntary moratorium on allowing meat and milk from cloned animals into the food supply. As early as January 2008, the USDA identified potential concerns about clones entering “export channels,” saying, “industry will implement its livestock cloning supply chain management program which will establish protocols for tracking animal clones” — although this does not appear to yet be in place. Equally disconcerting, animal products derived from clones have no labeling requirements, depriving consumers of their right to choose or the ability to avoid cloned products if they are concerned about this technology.

The beef-packing industry is more powerful and consolidated now than it was a century ago when Congress enacted the Packers & Stockyards Act to break up the beef monopolies. Beef packing is the most concentrated industry in the meat and poultry sector. Meatpackers have merged into a few dominant players that slaughter and market almost all of the beef products in the United States. Today, just four firms slaughter more than four out of five beef cattle. This concentration gives large packers tremendous leverage over independent cattle producers. The beef-packing industry has also expanded beyond slaughter and processing and now large packers own their own cattle and operate feedlots, thus controlling supply through all stages of production. These practices enable the meatpackers to drive down cattle prices while keeping consumer beef prices high.