For example, hydroelectric plants displace energy derived from coal. But it is not always easy to legislate market power away. Striking the right regulatory balance to ensure innovation while maximizing consumer benefits has proven extremely difficult in practice. There is also the problem of securing political attention. Agricultural oligopolies are a relatively minor concern for the US Department of Justice, as compared to handling Microsoft or WorldCom.
Farmers are now only a tiny percentage of the population.
Such companies, whether private or public, could be treated as utilities, such as electricity and telephone service providers. They would be allowed some amount of market power in exchange for public oversight and an obligation to provide everyone with their services. Corporate consolidation, and with it diminishing competition, is a clear feature of the current economy. Current multilateral trade rules facilitate this phenomenon. Nowhere in the debates on agriculture and trade at the WTO has the very real concentration of market power in commodity markets properly surfaced as an issue for consideration.