From Big Ag to Big Finance: a market network approach to power in agriculture

Loka Ashwood; Andy Pilny; John Canfield; Mariyam Jamila; Ryan Thomson

doi:10.1007/s10460-022-10332-3

From Big Ag to Big Finance: a market network approach to power in agriculture

Loka Ashwood, Andy Pilny, John Canfield, Mariyam Jamila, Ryan Thomson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

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
Pages (from-to)	1421-1434
Number of pages	14
Journal	Agriculture and Human Values
Volume	39
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10332-3
State	Published - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Mary Hendrickson, Phil Howard, Pat Mooney, and Harlan Prechel for reading and commenting on earlier versions of this paper. We would also like to thank participants for their feedback at the Yale Big Ag & Antitrust Conference as well as participants at the workshop “Understanding Competition and Market Power in Agricultural Markets” at the University of Missouri. The four anonymous reviewers pushed the paper conceptually and the analytical precision they called for significantly strengthened our paper. We thank them for it.

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

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10.1007/s10460-022-10332-3

Cite this

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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.",

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N2 - 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.

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From Big Ag to Big Finance: a market network approach to power in agriculture

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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