Harris Proposal to Ban ‘Price Gouging’ Comes at a Time When Farmers Are Blocked From Fair Market Access, Decimating Rural Communities
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — At a time when meat packers are enjoying record profits while farmers are denied access to fair markets and consumers are paying inflated prices, Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Action (LSA) welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposal to seek a ban on “price gouging” in the food and grocery industry. The proposal would take specific aim at meat packers.
“It’s clear it’s long overdue for the government to step in and stop the highly anti-competitive situation that dominates agriculture,” said James Kanne, a dairy and beef cattle farmer in Minnesota’s Renville County.
According to one economic rule of thumb, when at least four firms control over 40% of a market — called the four firm concentration or “CR4” level — it is no longer a competitive situation. The meat industry alone has far surpassed being a competitive business, with just four companies controlling over half of chicken processing and 85% of beef processing, for example. Only a dozen federally inspected plants produced slightly less than half of the country’s beef supply in 2022, according to Investigate Midwest’s analysis of USDA data. That year, 14 plants produced roughly 60% of U.S. pork. Meanwhile, as the federal government advances changes to the protections given to livestock and poultry producers via the Packers and Stockyards Act, meat industry groups and major meat companies spent more than $10 million on political contributions and lobbying efforts in 2023, according to Investigate Midwest. “In some cases, industry groups backed lawmakers seeking to do away with the new rulings altogether,” reported the news service.
“Consolidation in all aspects of the ag industry is rampant and it’s decimating our communities,” said Kanne. “This has meant double-digit decreases in population for our area in the last couple of censuses. The consolidation is everywhere in agriculture — in many cases co-ops have grown to areas spanning across county lines. Individual farmers are helpless in this circumstance. The only solution is a regulation that would make the playing field fairer for everyone and the federal government is the one in a position to do this.”
Sean Carroll, LSA’s director of policy and organizing, said efforts on the part of the Biden Administration to strengthen the Packers and Stockyards Act are a good step in the right direction. LSA also welcomes recent efforts by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to take on market concentration by, for example, filing a lawsuit against egg producer Sparboe Farms for price-gouging. In addition, Land Stewardship Project-backed efforts at the Minnesota Legislature to bolster support for small, independent meat processing in the state shows that creating a meat industry that benefits farmers and consumers is a nonpartisan issue, said Carroll.
“It’s clear that the only people our concentrated food system benefits are the owners and shareholders of the meat packing companies and other food giants,” he said. “It’s time this massive rip-off of the public was put to a stop.”