Mary K. Hendrickson

Opening spaces through relocalization: Locating potential resistance in the weaknesses of the global food system

In this paper we explore several themes based on our intertwined research and outreach activities. First, we examine and discuss emerging global food chains that are embedded in strategic alliances, joint ventures and relationships - in short in networks of power. Decisions are being displaced away from multiple actors situated in different localities to globalized decision-making located within a few firms that make up each cluster. While the roots of these phenomena are firmly grounded in long-term historical processes, it is important to document and understand what is emerging at the global level in order to create alternatives. Second, we discuss our outreach work with farmers, consumers and communities in helping them to frame and understand the changes that are taking place in the food and agriculture system. This is exemplified through a case study of the Kansas City Food Circle and its role in generating alternative visions from the consumption side of the food equation. This work is extremely important for challenging the global food system, and also for helping to empower farmers, eaters and communities to create alternatives. We lay out an analytical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the global system, and the opportunities found in the social, environmental and economic failures of the global system. In conclusion, the work described above rests on the recognition of different forms of agency that are appearing in the food system, agency that is located within the spaces provided by the unsustainable, unjust nature of the global system. We remain cognizant of the incredible networks of power that shape the production and consumption relationships in the food system. However, we remain hopeful that models of emerging alternatives can help relocalize production/consumption relationships in the food system in equitable ways. In other words, in relationships that are personalized and sustainable, and that are embedded in place and community

Consolidation in food retailing and dairy

Discusses the restructuring of the food production, processing and retailing sectors in the USA. Describes different methods of vertical and horizontal integration that have occurred. Goes on to discuss the consolidation of business in retailing in particular. Refers to the relationships that are being formed between the supermarket chains, for example Wal‐Mart and Kroger, and dominant food‐chain clusters. Considers whether or not smaller retail chains and wholesalers should feel threatened by this consolidation. Takes the dairy sector in the USA as a case study in the restructuring of the retailing and processing sectors.

The Ethics of Constrained Choice: How the Industrialization of Agriculture Impacts Farming and Farmer Behavior

The industrialization of agriculture not only alters the ways in which agricultural production occurs, but also impacts the decisions farmers make in important ways. First, constraints created by the economic environment of farming limit what options a farmer has available to him. Second, because of the industrialization of agriculture and the resulting economic pressures it creates for farmers, the fact that decision are constrained creates new ethical challenges for farmers. Having fewer options when faced with severe economic pressures is a very different situation for farmers than having many options available. We discuss the implications of constrained choice and show that it increases the likelihood that farmers will consider unethical behavior.

Social and political influences on agricultural systems

Agricultural systems are situated within social and political environments that have tremendous influence on how they operate. If agricultural systems are to be sustainable, it is critical to understand how they are influenced by social and political factors. An expert panel approach was used to identify and rank the importance of social and political factors on agricultural systems in the US and to provide some insights into their impacts, interactions and mechanisms of influence. The panel identified a wide range of social and political factors that affect agricultural systems. The factors were divided into three categories: internal social factors, external social factors and political factors. Factors from each of the three categories were highly ranked, indicating that no single category dominated the others. Although there were contrasting views about the importance of some factors, there was strong consensus about many of them. Globalization and low margins that require increased scale and efficiency were identified as the two most important factors affecting agricultural systems. Several newly emerging factors were identified as well as factors needing further research. A comprehensive understanding of these factors is imperative to help guide scientific research so that beneficial discoveries are accepted and used, and to ensure that policy decisions enhance the future sustainability of agricultural production.

Perceived Economic Pressures and Farmer Ethics

We hypothesize that an increase in the economic pressures a farmer feels could result in that farmer being more tolerant of unethical conduct than farmers not experiencing economic pressures. To test this hypothesis, we use data from a survey of 3,000 Missouri farmers with farm sales in excess of

The Global Food System and Nodes of Power

10,000 in 2005 in which farmers were asked how acceptable they considered various unethical or questionable farming practices. The survey also contained questions designed to measure perceived economic pressures. We find evidence that economic pressures result in a greater willingness of farmers to tolerate unethical conduct, particularly in the case of actions that have the potential of causing harm or that are influenced by law or contract. We also find that the more frequently a farmer reports observing an unethical action, the more accepting he is of it.

Networks, Power and Dependency in the Agrifood Industry

Much attention has been paid to the emergence of a globally integrated food system in recent decades, where a few firms dominate in certain agriculture and food sectors, from inputs for food production to where farmers sell their raw agricultural products, to where consumers shop for groceries. Production centered notions of power, dominant in earlier analyzes of the industrialization of the agri-food system, have been challenged in recent years by the emergence of new actors - actors focused on the demand side of the system, led by the transnationalization of retail. Strategies based on food quality and considerations on their conditions of production unleashed a dynamic in which social movements, NGOs, and the politicized consumer began to overshadow the historic actors of agribusiness (examples of which we have discussed above). More recently, however, food inflation is firmly placing an upper limit on quality considerations and supply conditions are restored to center stage as market dynamics swing to the emerging economies. New sets of relationships in this system have hardened into new structures for the food system. Traditional controllers of supply both upstream and downstream see their power and their profits enhanced. At the same time, strategic importance of control over natural resources - land and the necessary minerals for productive land use - has stimulated a wave of new entrants: emerging economy governments, investment funds and new private actors to challenge the historic incumbents of agribusiness. The reality of power in the form of control over physical and technological assets has been forcefully reasserted. However, power is also still accumulated in different nodes among these global production networks. In this paper prepared for Oxfam America, we document and define eight critical issue areas where power is accumulating: a) in the shift from public to private governance; b) the closing off of access to markets; c) the rise of intellectual property regimes; d) the changes in access to capital; e) the control over necessary logistics; f) the informalization of labor in the global system; g) the rise of marketing and branding; and h) the shift from public to private decision-making about food. Throughout it all, we focus on the implications for farmers, consumers and communities of the food system in which we are embedded, and suggest potential leveraging points for changing agriculture and food to a more sustainable, equitable system.

Does the World Need U.S. Farmers Even if Americans Don't?

We review research on power, dependency and the concentration of agrifood industries and report updated concentration figures for selected agrifood sectors. We then utilize network exchange theory to identify principles of dependency and network relations and describe network relationships within the broiler, beef and commodity crop sectors. We argue that this study demonstrates that network analysis can inform on the nature, source and extent of differential dependencies and asymmetric power relationships within the agrifood sector.

Resilience in a concentrated and consolidated food system

We consider the implications of trends in the number of U.S. farmers and food imports on the question of what role U.S. farmers have in an increasingly global agrifood system. Our discussion stems from the argument some scholars have made that American consumers can import their food more cheaply from other countries than it can produce it. We consider the distinction between U.S. farmers and agriculture and the effect of the U.S. food footprint on developing nations to argue there might be an important role for U.S. farmers, even if it appears Americans don’t need them. For instance, we may need to protect U.S. farmland and, by implication, U.S. farmers, for future food security needs both domestic and international. We also explore the role of U.S. farmers by considering the question of whether food is a privilege or a right. Although Americans seem to accept that food is a privilege, many scholars and commentators argue that, at least on a global scale, food is a right, particularly for the world’s poor and hungry. If this is the case, then U.S. farmers might have a role in meeting the associated obligation to ensure that the poor of the world have enough food to eat. We look at the consequences of determining that food is a right versus a privilege and the implications of that decision for agricultural subsidies as well as U.S. agriculture and nutrition policies.

Power, Fairness and Constrained Choice in Agricultural Markets: A Synthesizing Framework

The focus of this article is to articulate the risks of a consolidated, industrialized agrifood system for our planet’s ecology and our ability to guarantee a future food supply, while also considering how the food system might become more resilient. A relatively small number of agribusiness firms, operating globally, have powerfully shaped who produces food, what is produced, how and where it is produced, and by whom it is eaten. To examine food system resilience, one must see that ecological risks of agriculture (e.g., monoculture, overuse of fertilizer and chemicals, and lack of genetic diversity) are intertwined with its social and economic organization, that relationships between people and between people and their particular places are critical to situate food decisions within ecology, and that issues of scale in a global food system are keenly important and challenging to resolve. Our highly concentrated global food system has resulted from horizontal and vertical integration in food system sectors and globalization of agricultural and food markets. This system constrains farmers (and others) in making choices that can fend off likely ecological and social disruptions while limiting their ability to accommodate change. It has eliminated smaller farms and businesses that provided a redundancy of role and function, resulting in few fail-safe mechanisms for the food system. A focus on efficiency, standardization, and specialization has decreased the diversity of scale, form, and organization across the food system. Finally, the dominant food system’s inability to solve food insecurity and hunger within both rich and poor countries, coupled with an industrial diet that uses up a great many natural resources, makes the system precarious. While there is no single approach at any given scale that will accomplish food system resilience, a combination of actions, strategies, and policies at multiple levels that are rooted in ecology, democracy, and economic and social equality is necessary to move forward.