Abstract
Critics charge that agriculture has reached an unsustainable level of consolidation and expropriation, as exemplified by the supply-chain breakdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, advocates suggest the current system serves consumers well by keeping prices low and access to choices high. At the center of this debate rests a disagreement over how to compute market power to identify monopolies and oligopolies. We propose a method to study power across different sectors by using Social Network Analysis (SNA) to analyze key players, the presence of core-periphery structures, and agricultural consolidation. We test our market network approach to power through an analysis of the top ten pork powerhouses. We find that Big Finance is closely tied to Big Ag, and that key players limit the capacity for more peripheral actors, like growers, equipment producers, and regional banks, to engage in the network. We identify system level risk of collapse and suggest pathways for reform.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1421-1434 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Agriculture and Human Values |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
Keywords
- Corporate agriculture
- Financialization
- Hog production
- Market power
- Monopolies
- Oligopolies
- Social network analysis
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Agronomy and Crop Science