Reports: Food

Food marketing is pervasive in the lives of children and adolescents. Food and beverage companies spent $1.6 billion in 2006 to reach this important market. On television, online and even in schools, youth are regularly exposed to messages encouraging them to eat unhealthy foods, at a time when they need to establish healthy eating habits. One in three American children and adolescents is overweight or obese, conditions that contribute to poor health over their whole lifetimes. Restricting unhealthy food marketing to youth is one important step addressing this crisis.

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.

Antibiotics are critical tools in human medicine. Medical authorities are warning that these life-saving drugs are losing their effectiveness, and there are few replacement drugs in the pipeline. Bacteria evolve in response to the use of antibiotics both in humans and in animals. Those bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics prosper as antibiotics kill the non-resistant bacteria. Once they emerge, antibiotic-resistant (AR) bacteria can transfer AR traits to other bacteria in animals and the environment. The development of antibiotic resistance is hastened by the use of low doses of antibiotics at industrial farms. The drugs are used routinely, not to treat sick animals, but for growth promotion and disease prevention, a practice known as subtherapeutic use.

The 2008 Farm Bill lobbying campaign ranked among the most well-financed legislative fights of the past decade. More than 1,000 companies, trade associations and other groups spent an estimated $173.5 million lobbying on just the 2008 Farm Bill, according to a Food & Water Watch analysis of data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. During every day that the 100th Congress was in session in 2007 and 2008, special interests spent an average of $539,000 lobbying on issues covered by the Farm Bill.

In this report, the first to address the relationship between the soy and factory fish farming industries, Food & Water Watch reveals that, while the soy industry stands to make large profits from the expan­sion of factory fish farming, there is no guarantee that soy-based aquaculture feed can consistently produce healthy fish or promote ecological respon­sibility. In fact, by causing fish to produce excess waste, soy could lead to an even more polluting fish farming industry.

Since their creation in 1862, land-grant universities have revolutionized American agriculture. These public institutions delivered better seeds, new plant varieties and advanced tools to farmers who deployed scientific breakthroughs to increase agri­cultural productivity. They pioneered vitally impor­tant research on environmental stewardship, such as soil conservation. Land-grant universities partnered with farmers in research efforts, advancing rural livelihoods and improving the safety and abundance of food for consumers.

For the past 25 years, emissions trading, known more recently as “cap-and-trade,” has been promot­ed as the best strategy for solving pollution prob­lems. Based on an obscure economic theory that gained prominence in the 1960s at the University of Chicago, it was embraced by the Reagan administra­tion as a replacement for regulating air emissions. Since that time, it has gained acceptance among environmental organizations and the largest environmental funders.

Walmart is so big that it has an unprecedented amount of power in all sectors of the economy. Food is no exception. When there is one player this large connecting food producers and food consumers, consumers are no longer the food industry’s customers — Walmart is. And the saying “the customer is always right” has never been more appropriate.

Our current food system is broken, and it did not happen by accident. Many people do not have access to safe, nutritious, affordable food; many farmers can’t make a living; many regions of the country no longer produce the food they consume; and large-scale industrial agriculture pollutes our soil and water. Decades of misguided farm policy designed by agribusiness, combined with unchecked corporate consolidation, have wreaked havoc on family farmers, public health and rural communities.