Dig Deeper with Digging In! Digging In is SAFSF’s first documentary film, produced by Nathan.works and underwritten by the Vatheuer Family Foundation, and was designed as a tool for funders and their grantees to explore the wide-ranging challenges of land access, consolidation and concentration, and climate change on U.S. agriculture. The film uplifts on-the-ground perspectives and solutions across the country.
Claire Kelloway, Open Markets Institute, joined SAFSF and the broader food systems community for a deep dive into meat and poultry consolidation through a recent installment of Digging Deeper, our lunchtime condensed documentary screening series. Featured in the film, Claire is a renowned thought leader and writer on market concentration in the food sector. Building on insights from our series, this blog post amplifies her expertise as she dives deeper into the critical issue of industry consolidation.
Claire Kelloway is the program manager for fair food and farming systems at the Open Markets Institute. She is the primary writer for Food & Power, a first-of-its-kind website, providing original reporting and resources on monopoly power in food and agriculture. She also oversees Open Markets’ policy research into the legal underpinnings of corporations and market concentration in the food sector.
Kelloway has written for outlets such as The Intercept, Civil Eats, The American Prospect, and ProPublica. She has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Vox’s “FuturePerfect” videos, and numerous podcasts. Before joining Open Markets, she worked as a sustainability fellow with Bon Appetit Management Company and studied political economy at Carleton College.
Kelloway lives and works in Minneapolis. You can reach her at kelloway@openmarketsinstitute.org or @clairekelloway on Twitter.
Is there a story, issue, or organization mentioned in the film that you found particularly interesting or compelling, and why?
The connection between increased consolidation and greater supply chain fragility is a particularly compelling issue in the film. As climate change makes extreme weather events more common, a highly consolidated and overly specialized supply chain will make the food system vulnerable to more disruptions like we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What specific changes or actions would you like to see in philanthropic practices to better address the issue of concentration and consolidation?
Antimonopoly advocacy is significantly under-resourced compared to our adversaries, the largest corporations in the world. Resources for policy advocacy, grassroots organizing, legal and economic research, antitrust litigation, and narrative-shifting work would all help hold power to account and win systemic policy changes to deconcentrate and democratize the food system.
How would you encourage local communities to actively engage with the issues presented in the film?
State attorneys general and even private antitrust lawyers are looking to challenge abuses of monopoly power, and they need to hear your stories and experiences to build cases. If you’ve suffered from abusive corporate tactics or noticed potentially collusive, anti-competitive behavior in the marketplace, do not hesitate to inform your state attorney general. So much manipulative or exclusionary business conduct that we take for granted may actually violate the antitrust laws.
Which organizations or innovative solutions not mentioned in the film do you believe are leading impactful work in addressing concentration and consolidation that should be uplifted?
Farmer- and community-led organizations have sounded the alarm on monopolies for decades. The film spotlighted Farm Action, which does great work.
Other grassroots, member-driven antimonopoly organizations include:
Missouri Rural Crisis Center
Missouri Rural Crisis Center uplifts factory farm and state policy, federal farm and food policies, food cooperative program, rural healthcare initiative, sustainable food supply, patchwork family farms as its current program areas.
Founded in 1985, MRCC was formed by a group of farmers and rural Missourians organizing to save family farms during the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. With a mission to preserve family farms, promote stewardship of the land and environmental integrity and strive for economic and social justice by building unity and mutual understanding among diverse groups, both rural and urban, MRCC challenges corporate control and corporate-driven farm and food systems.
Dakota Rural Action
Dakota Rural Action is a grassroots, family agriculture and conservation group that organizes South Dakotans to protect family farmers and ranchers, natural resources and unique way of life. The organization is comprised of chapters all across South Dakota that bring together geographical neighbors to solve problems unique to their community.
Western Organization of Resource Councils
Western Organization of Resource Councils elevates Western voices and holds decision-makers accountable. With over 40 years of grassroots organizing, WORC has 22,750 members in 38 chapters in a seven-state region, including membership from most of their states’ Reservations. Their work has brought big wins to keep family farms operating by minimizing the impacts of under-regulated oil and gas development, stopping the destruction of land through coal mining, and limiting the growth of industrialized agriculture.
National Family Farm Coalition
NFFC mobilizes family farmers, fishers, and ranchers for fair prices, vibrant communities, and healthy foods free of corporate domination. Since 1986, National Family Farm Coalition has been farmer-led, working from kitchen tables to Capitol Hill, connecting people, supporting local and national organizing, and building a movement for long-term policy change. Through 30 member organizations, NFFC represents over 50,000 farmers and ranchers, and over 400,000 fishers across Rural America.
HEAL Food Alliance
HEAL Food Alliance is a multi-sector, multi-racial coalition building collective power to transform our food and farm systems. Led by member organizations, HEAL represents over 2 million rural and urban farmers, fishers, farm and food chain workers, Indigenous groups, scientists, public health advocates, policy experts, community organizers, and activists.
Their Platform for Real Food is a 10-point platform that serves as a call to action and a political compass for transformation to walk together into a future that truly nourishes our health, our economies, and our environment. Currently, HEAL focuses on good food communities, the HEAL School of Political Leadership, and Farm Bill negotiations.
National Family Farm Coalition
NFFC mobilizes family farmers, fishers, and ranchers for fair prices, vibrant communities, and healthy foods free of corporate domination. Since 1986, National Family Farm Coalition has been farmer-led, working from kitchen tables to Capitol Hill, connecting people, supporting local and national organizing, and building a movement for long-term policy change. Through 30 member organizations, NFFC represents over 50,000 farmers and ranchers, and over 400,000 fishers across Rural America.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Iowa CCI has organized to build the power of everyday people in Iowa’s rural towns and big cities since 1975. Members create change through grassroots organizing, educating, and mobilizing on issues that impact communities most. They work to put people and planet first by stopping factory farms and CO2 pipelines, ending racial profiling and anti-immigrant legislation, and winning bold action on climate change, safe and dignified housing, and clean water for everyone.
Iowa CCI is a statewide group of Iowans who believe that policymaking is the people’s business, that people most directly impacted by an issue should be in the driver’s seat, and that we are all in this together. The organization champions democracy that works for all of us, no exceptions.
Land Stewardship Project
Land Stewardship Project is a private nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic of stewardship of farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture, and to develop healthy communities. LSP is dedicated to creating transformational change in our food and farming system. Their work has a broad and deep impact, from new farmer training and local organizing, to federal policy and community-based food systems development. LSP operates with the core values of stewardship, justice, democracy, health and community.
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America
R-CALF USA is the largest producer-only membership based organization that exclusively represents U.S. cattle and sheep producers on domestic and international trade and marketing issues. R-CALF USA is dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. With a membership of over 5,000 producers, backgrounders, and feeders located in 43 states, this organization has profoundly impacted the U.S. live cattle industry as the national voice for independent cow-calf producers and feeders across America.
North American Marine Alliance
NAMA is rallying a movement to resists big-business control of ocean resources, empower local fishermen, transform problematic supply chains, and establish a fair seafood system for everyone. NAMA’s end game is a just seafood system that guarantees fair wages and working conditions, equitable access to seafood, and healthy marine ecosystems. A fisherman-led organization, North American Marine Alliance works at the intersection of marine conservation and social, environmental, economic, and food justice. Their team plays four critical roles (“the birds, the bees, the worms, the beavers”) in the broader ecosystem of fisheries.
Their ongoing active campaigns include Block Corporate Salmon, Don’t Cage Our Oceans, Catch Share Reform Coalition, and Anchors in Action.
What stories are you currently following that you think deserve more attention?
Two of the world’s largest food commodity traders, Bunge and Viterra, are currently trying to merge. The European Union and other competition regulators have started to clear the deal, with minor concessions. Companies like Bunge and Viterra wield enormous power over the prices people pay for essential goods, as well as the prices that farmers receive for their products, and communities in the Global South stand to suffer the most from any further volatility in food prices. Most coverage of this deal emphasizes the risks of regional increases in market concentration, particularly in Canada and South America, missing the systemic threat of further concentrating the global food trade.
What resources would you recommend for funders looking to learn more about concentration and consolidation?
I cover food systems consolidation and antitrust policy in my newsletter, Food & Power. The Food & Power website has additional resources and reading recommendations on this issue. Food & Water Watch and Farm Action have also published excellent data on concentration levels across the food industry including in animal agriculture, agrichemical inputs, groceries, and more.
All resources, organizations, and views reflected are those of the speaker.