Corporate Concentration in Agriculture and Food

Corporate Concentration in Agriculture and Food is a dossier of seven papers that presents the impact large corporations and agribusinesses have on the agricultural sector in India. The papers were originally presented in Bengaluru, June 2019, at a symposium organised by the Alternative Law Forum (ALF) and Focus on the Global South (FOCUS). (ALF provides legal services to marginalised groups and FOCUS is a research and policy think-tank with headquarters in Thailand.) The dossier was published by these two organisations in collaboration with the New Delhi-based Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung South Asia.The 84-page publication documents the way agribusinesses create monopolies in agrichemical, commercial seed and other markets; absorb much of the agricultural credit available; influence government regulations; and threaten small and medium farmers, who form the majority of agricultural households in India. The publication, through some of its papers, calls for alternative agriculture development strategies to sustain India’s small farmers, ensure social security and prevent ecological damage.The seven papers are summarised below:1. Concentration in Global Seed & Agro-Chemical Industry: Implications for Indian AgricultureThis is a paper by Dinesh Abrol, science and technology policy expert and former chief scientist, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research. It notes that the mega-mergers of the ‘big six’ agrichemical and seed corporations – the Monsanto-Bayer, ChemChina-Syngenta and Dow-DuPont mergers – will facilitate the corporate monopolisation of close to 70 per cent of the global agricultural input industry. The mega-mergers will establish a new “structure pillar” that will provide “a material basis to the relations of agro-imperialism” in the global south. The resultant patterns of resource use, says the author, will harm labour, ecology and the economy.The corporate concentration in Indian agriculture, aided by the deregulation of the farm sector and a weak law on monopoly, has led to a drain of foreign exchange and increased dependence on these companies’ products...