The farm fight begins: Justice Department and USDA hold first public meeting about competition in food sector
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Early Friday morning, more than 700 farmers, agribusiness executives and government officials gathered at the Des Moines Area Community College to discuss the issues that have emerged in the food sector because of consolidation of the industry.
The Justice Department has received 15,000 comments and questions from the public over this issue. And, based on the mood here in Ankeny, it’s clear there’s going to be more debate than polite discussion.
The topics on the hot seat are as diverse as livestock; seeds -- and the complaints that Monsanto Co. is strangling competition and driving up prices; and outrage over grocery store prices and the discrepancy in what consumers pay for food -- little of which farmers actually get.
John J. Anderson, a dairy farmer from Illinois, stood in the hallways with several neighbors outside the Dennis & Susan Albaugh Conference Center. The room was named after the Iowan whose company provides the key chemical to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.
The group had come to voice their complaints about the rising price of seeds and the falling price of milk, among other issues. For the last several years, they said, the number of processing companies that they could sell their milk to had shrunk by half. Now, he said, no matter which company they sold their milk to, the price was always the same.
“It didn’t use to be that way,” Anderson said. “There used to be a lot of competition and the prices were better.”
As the conference began with a round table of leading regulatory and Justice officials, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack pointed out that these public meetings are focused on a few key concerns.
“Are farmers and ranchers in this country getting a fair shake?” he asked. “Is there sufficient competition in the industry?”
-- P.J. Huffstutter