SAFSF uses focus areas to frame our policy, education, networking, and collaboration activities and offer multiple points of intersection for funders across our network.
Government agriculture policies have historically favored large farms and continue to do so – a reflection of the farm interests powerful enough to play a role in the policy-making process. The trend toward larger and larger farms has accelerated since the 1950s with marked changes over the last 40 years, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, with the result that “large crop farms are getting larger, small crop farms are getting smaller, and midsize crop farms are disappearing.” Climate change and extreme weather events and other economic pressures on rural communities – many driven by consolidation and concentration in health care, retail and other sectors that serve these communities – make small and mid-size farms even more vulnerable to acquisition and absorption into larger farms. This means fewer farmers overall and fewer opportunities for beginning farmers and ranchers and farmers of color.
Concentration plays out when a sector becomes so consolidated that there are only a few suppliers or buyers of a product. In the food system, the most blatant examples of concentration occur in the meat processing sector, where four companies control 67% of pork processing and 85% of beef processing. But concentration is also a factor in other sectors and at other points along the supply chain, such as institutional foodservice vendors. Workers in highly concentrated food system sectors have little power to demand proper working conditions and equitable treatment. Institutional buyers and retail consumers have little power to affect the prices in these sectors, and also bear the brunt of externalized costs for environmental and social harms caused by corporations who are not held accountable by current policies.
These resources are provided for information only; listing here does not imply an endorsement of any organization or its views by SAFSF.
Below is a listing of SAFSF programs and resources related to consolidation.
Registration for these calls is limited to current SAFSF members only. Responding to the needs expressed by our membership, SAFSF will host a strategy call series over the next month […]
This pandemic has clearly shown us the fragility of a livestock production and processing system that concentrates all the power in the hands of a few companies, which extract profit […]
Many funders, investors, and PSOs have reached out to SAFSF in the past two months for help in understanding the shocking COVID-19-related food and agriculture headlines and how they as […]
Presented byFood and Farm Communications Fund, GRACE Communications, and The John Merck Fund The Covid-19 crisis makes painfully clear the inherent injustice and fragility of an extractive food system that prioritizes […]
Presented byFood and Farm Communications Fund, GRACE Communications, and The John Merck Fund The Covid-19 crisis makes painfully clear the inherent injustice and fragility of an extractive food system that prioritizes […]
This pandemic has clearly shown us the fragility of a livestock production and processing system that concentrates all the power in the hands of a few companies, which extract profit […]
Many funders, investors, and PSOs have reached out to SAFSF in the past two months for help in understanding the shocking COVID-19-related food and agriculture headlines and how they as […]
Registration for these calls is limited to current SAFSF members only. Responding to the needs expressed by our membership, SAFSF will host a strategy call series over the next month […]
– Analysis by Traci Bruckner, SAFSF Policy Program Director – The unjust and egregious murder of George Floyd is awakening a national dialogue and movement to dismantle structural racism. It […]
Building bridges between community and economic development stakeholders and the regional food sector is integral to increasing the viability and resilience of regional food economies and improving community vitality, health, […]