Transcript The Big Business Food Industry

The Big Business
Food Industry
Who’s in Charge of our diets?
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Six or fewer companies control around 70% of
the world agricultural commodity trade
They are making huge profits at the expense of
the small farmers who produce the food and
people who pay more money each year to eat a
less diverse and more processed diet
Small farmers are losing their farms, and more
and more people are turning to food banks (9%
in Canada)
Why you ask?
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Few government restrictions or regulations to
hold multinational corporations accountable for
their actions
WTO – World Trade Organization
NAFTA – North American Free Trade Agreement
Both of these allow these corporations to own
and control larger portions of the global market
Advantages of Multinational Food
Companies for the Developing Nations
Foreign Investment
 Increased Commerce
 Increased Employment
 Better Food Processing Technology
 Increased Commercial Knowledge
 Improved Safety of Food
 Increased Food Assurance
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The Public Health Paradox
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We know about how multinational food companies work,
grow and prosper.
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We know about the nutritional sciences and what people
should eat for good health.
BUT
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Less is known on how to combine the two fields in
public health programs for the benefit of the citizens both
in the industrial countries and now in the developing
countries ! (Big research opportunity)
Concerns
Land Distribution – in most countries
agribusinesses own most of the fertile
land, local people do not have land to
farm. Instead they are forced to work for
the large businesses making low wages
and in poor working conditions
 Few of the profits go back into these
countries
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Genetic Engineering
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Agribusinesses genetically engineer seed, which
they then patent.
Farmers must buy seeds every year rather than
gathering the ones from previous crops
2001 – Saskatchewan farmer, Percy Schmeiser,
was sued by agribusiness Monsanto because
some of Monsanto’s crops were found growing
on his land. He claimed that the wind blew the
seeds onto his land and that he hadn’t harvested
them illegally. Monsanto won.
Pesticides
Larger amounts of pesticides are used by
the agribusinesses than by small farmers
 Cause damage to farmers, soil, water, and
consumers
 “The World Health Organization estimates
that 3 million people a year are poisoned
by pesticides, and 200,000 die.” (Oxfam)
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Cash Crops
Most agribusinesses grow food to export
rather than food to be eaten in the country
in which it is grown
 This means that people in those countries
rely on imported foods, making them more
expensive
 Cash crops – tobacco, cocoa, coffee,
wheat, rice, peanuts, etc.
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WORLD’s TOP 10 Food & Beverage Companies
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Nestle
Kraft Foods
ConAgra
PepsiCo
Unilever
ADM
Cargill
Coca-Cola
Diageo
Mars
Home Country
Food Sales 01
Switzerland
USA
USA
USA
NL/UK
USA
USA
USA
UK
USA
$46.6 billions
$38.1 billions
$27.6 billions
$26.9 billions
$26.7 billions
$23.5 billions
$21.5 billions
$20.1 billions
$16.6 billions
$15.3 billions
Diagram 5
FOOD PRODUCT EVOLUTION
Ready-prepared
Ready-to-Eat Foods
Volume
Packaged
Convenience
Foods
Retail Commodity
Foods
1860
1950
2000
J. Tillotson
Who’s in Control?
Let’s look at a few of the Big Players…
Nestle
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Nescafe
Golden Grahams
Cheerios
Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Libby’s
Lean Cuisine
Baci
Baby Ruth
Butterfinger
Aero
Fancy Feast
Friskies
L’Oreal
Pharmaceutical products – Alcon
and Galderma
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Taster’s Choice
Magi
Cocoa Puffs
Carnation
Nesquik
Lucky Charms
Stouffer’s
Haagen Dazs
Chips Ahoy
KitKat
Smarties
Quality Street
Montego Sherbet
After Eight
Philip Morris
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Kraft Products
Maxwell House
Crystal Light
Kool-Aid
Tang
Alpha-bits
Grape nuts
Honeycomb
Pebbles
Raisin Bran
Shredded Wheat
Bull’s Eye BBQ Sauce
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Terry’s Chocolates
Toblerone
Jell-O
Dream Whip
Taco Bell dinner kits and salsa
Velveeta
Philadelphia Cream Cheese
Oscar Meyer hot dogs
Tombstone & Digiorno Pizza
Miller Brewing Co.
Philip Morris Cigarettes
Cargill
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Barge Operations
Beef
Broilers
Cattle feeding
Cocoa Trading
Coffee
Financial brokerages
Cotton
Corn Milling
Egg Products
Fats and Oils
Feed
Ferrous Metals
Flour Milling
Fertilizers
Fruit juices
Fruits and vegetables
Grain
Malt
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Molasses
Oil seeds
Peanuts/nuts
Petroleum
Nongrain feed
Pork
Poultry
Rice Milling
Rubber
Salt
Steel
Structured Finance
Sugar
Swine production
Turkeys
Wire
Wool
Leasing
Who are Monsanto?
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Herbicide tolerant crops
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Bollgard Cotton, Bollgard with Roundup Ready
Cotton, Ingard Cotton
NewLeaf Potatoes
YieldGard Insect Protected Corn
Pipeline Monsanto insect resistant crops include
rootworm-protected maize, insect-protected
tomatoes, and boll weevil-protected cotton.
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Agricultural Chemicals
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best known of these products is RoundUp, a broad
spectrum herbicide.
maize resistant to fungal and viral diseases
potatoes resistant to fungal diseases
wheat resistant to fungal and viral diseases
virus protected tomatoes
Monsanto are also developing a range of crops
with altered nutrient value including:
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Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or BST) called
Posilac. Posilac is a genetically engineered growth
hormone injected into cows to increase their milk
production
a tomato with altered ripening characteristics.
the FlavrSavr tomato
an oil-seed rape with altered fatty acid properties.
a multi-virus resistant squash.
Pipeline Monsanto disease resistant crops
include:
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Bovine Growth Hormone
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Other GM Crops
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Insect Resistant Crops
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RoundUp Ready crops include maize, soya,
canola (oil seed rape), cotton and sugar beet.
Pipeline RoundUp Ready food crops include
rice, wheat and potatoes.
Beyond food crops, developing GM RoundUp
Ready (herbicide-tolerant) trees.
Bromoxynil tolerant cotton
Phosphinothricin (glufosinate ammonium) herbicide
tolerant maize.
altering the oil composition of oilseed rape and
soybeans
altering soybean protein for use as meat
substitutes
altering potatoes to reduced discolouration from
bruising for commercial storage and also for lower
moisture content thus absorbing less oil during
cooking
Functional Foods
Monsanto is likely to be one of the key players in
the introduction of the second generation of GM
crops, so called functional foods, engineered to
have beneficial output traits beyond basic nutrition.
How can a seed company have
influence?
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Lobby Groups
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Links with Government
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Employees moving to and from the FDA helped bypass the regulatory process
and get marketing consent in the US for their GM and other products with
minimal safety checks. (and made it harder for other countries to create stricter
regulations)
Influence Research and Education
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Organizations that establish standards for farm trials, encouraging biotech
supportive policies and support for GM foods.
Have employees that sit on boards that guide funding for biotech research for
various universities.
PR Companies
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used several prominent public relations companies in an all out media assault to
achieve public acceptance of their GM products.
 Have been some successful lawsuits around the spreading of misinformation in
the UK.
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General Business Practices
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Ex. Seeds have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are
harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile (e.g., dead, unusable). This
forces farmers to pay Monsanto every year for new seeds if they want to grow
their crops.
 Patenting of Genetic Codes for seeds (ex. Cocoa beans)
Pointing the finger?
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People put governments in place who in
turn create systems that allow for certain
business practices…
What if I don’t like that?
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Buy products that are locally grown
Buy organic foods – to reduce the amount of
pesticides and chemicals entering our bodies
Buy fairly traded items such as coffee
Support local business instead of big box
companies
Contact your government representative and
voice your opinion.