2000 Family farmers ultimately derive their income from the agricultural marketplace. Family farmers have always been in a position of weakness in selling their product to large processors and in buying their inputs from large suppliers. Today, the position of the family farmer has become far weaker as consolidation in agribusiness has reached all time highs.
Farmers have fewer buyers and suppliers than ever before.
The result is an increasing loss of family farms and the smallest farm share of the consumer dollar in history. One hundred years ago, this nation reacted appropriately to citizen concerns about large, powerful companies by establishing rules constraining such businesses when they achieved a level of market power that harmed, or risked harming, the public interest, trade and commerce. The United State Congress enacted the first competition laws in the world to make commerce more free and fair. Since that time, many countries in the world have followed this U.S. example to constrain undue market power in their domestic economies. Unfortunately, competition policy has been severely weakened in this country, especially in agriculture, due to federal caselaw, underfunded enforcement, and unfounded reliance on efficiency claims.